How Atlanta's Famous Peachtree Road Was Built

by Denise Weimer

My last post revealed my surprise when I learned a War of 1812 fort once existed in the county where I grew up. That’s unusual for North Central Georgia. Constructed in the fall of 1813 as a defense against Creek Indians allied to the British, Fort Daniel also served as a jumping-off point for the construction of one of Atlanta’s iconic routes—Peachtree Road.

A reconstructed Fort Mitchell

During the Creek War, supplies for the American army had to be rafted across the Chattahoochee River nine miles below present-day Columbus, Georgia. Then they were taken by wagon to Fort Mitchell, which was built by General John Floyd in the summer of 1813 as the main supply depot for the troops in the field (present-day Alabama). A two-pronged plan was launched to better supply those troops. First, a road would be built southwest to the Chattahoochee River, where a fort would be constructed. Simultaneously, a boat would be built that could launch from farther up the river.

The X on the map fell on Standing Peach Tree, a Creek Indian village on both sides of the Chattahoochee River at the mouth of Peachtree (as it came to be called) Creek. The village served as the terminus for the Creeks’ Peachtree Trail, which ran along the top of the Chattahoochee Ridge from near present-day Toccoa to what is now Buckhead, where it divided. One branch continued to Standing Peachtree. The other branch ran across Peachtree Creek toward the Sandtown Tail at Five Points in what is now downtown Atlanta.

In December of 1813, after being appointed deputy quartermaster, Major Thomas Bourke commissioned a boat to be built under a Lieutenant Morris at Vann’s Ferry that could navigate the Chattahoochee south from Peachtree.

Meanwhile, the route from Fort Daniel to Peachtree followed a trail from Hog Mountain to Suwanee Old Town (the east-west dividing line between Creek and Cherokee Indians), across Peachtree Ridge, and on to the Peachtree village—a total distance of about thirty miles. Lieutenant George Gilmer would oversee a detachment of twenty-two soldiers which would accompany three locals, stock raisers, who would grade the road after an initial team marked it out. But first, Sergeant James Montgomery, Jackson County resident and US Army wagonmaster, learned when he arrived at Fort Daniel that no tools had arrived. He had to scour the countryside for whipsaws, axes, and a cross-cut saw. The sons of the local men drove the carts. One night, the fathers had some fun at the expense of the boys as they ate dinner, riding in from picket duty whooping like Indians.

Bourke’s boat left Vann’s Ferry on January 23 and reached Peachtree by February 11. The supply chain for the army had begun. 

At the fort site, the soldiers raised two large blockhouses, six dwelling houses, one frame storehouse, a bridge, and five boats, costing the government a whopping five thousand dollars by the time work was completed in July of 1814. By then, the Creek Indians had been defeated and signed treaties giving away most of their land. James Montgomery, the sergeant in charge, loved the area so much, he later returned to become postmaster of Standing Peachtree and establish Montgomery’s Ferry.

And Peachtree Road just got busier and busier after that.

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for the historical imprints of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of a dozen published novels and a number of novellas. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses!

Connect with Denise here:
Monthly Newsletter Sign-up
Website
Facebook
Twitter
BookBub

A Fort on the Georgia Frontier

by Denise Weimer

In and around Atlanta, we have plenty of history—especially between the Civil War and Civil Rights eras. Many Native American place and river names, both Creek and Cherokee, hint of earlier times. Because those tribes occupied land in this area from the Federal period back in time, documentation of settlement by white Americans is rare. So you can imagine my surprise when I learned that a War of 1812 fort existed in what is currently Gwinnett County—then Jackson County—less than forty miles northeast of current downtown Atlanta.

When this fort came into existence is even in question. Some historians speculate it might have been constructed as early as the 1790s or around 1805. Documentation does reveal that Native American lands west and north of the fort were illegally surveyed. In 1803, in response to the settlement of several families on Indian land across the Jackson County line, Governor Milledge ordered Brigadier General David Dickson to use the Jackson militia to push them back across the line and “set fire to their Cabbins or Camps.”

What we do know is that in 1812, Fort Daniel sat at the westernmost point of Jackson County (white-settled Georgia) at the south end of the 1785 Treaty of Hopewell (Cherokee lands) and the north end of the 1790 Treaty of New York (Creek lands). And by 1812, Red Stick Creek Warriors (allied to the British) posed a real threat as they advanced through Alabama Territory.

In October of 1813, Governor Mitchell wrote to Major General Allen Daniel that he did not believe the Indians would cross the Chattahoochee River but that Daniel should use spies to watch the native population and muster forces in readiness of attack. Each man was to furnish himself with a knapsack, blanket, arms and equipment until the latter two could be furnished by the government. “The fort which is poorly constructed of dry timbers should be rebuilt at or near the present fort so as to raise the platforms and post holes at such a height that the enemy can’t get an advantage.” Brigadier General Beall and Major John D. Terrell were charged with oversight of the work. Daniel ordered Beall to provide thirty militiamen to relieve those already at the Hog Mountain fort and set up a ten-day rotation.

Fort Daniel was rebuilt during the fall and winter of 1813 at the top of Hog Mountain, a crossroads community where livestock was commonly sold. Trees were cleared in all directions. The fort itself measured approximately seventy-five feet square with diagonally placed blockhouses, twenty by twenty and fourteen feet high. A three-foot-wide gate was located on the east-facing wall. The commissary, officers’ houses, and soldiers’ huts measured fifteen by twenty.

A number of volunteers and militia manned Fort Daniel during the Creek War, which ended in March of 1813 with General Andrew Jackson’s victory at Horseshoe Bend. Its most important function might have been that it served as a staging point for the building of the Peachtree Road, following an Indian path that ran southwest to a crossing and trading point on the Chattahoochee River, where the militia constructed Fort Peachtree. 

Fort Daniel remained largely forgotten until its rediscovery on private property in 2009. Gwinnett County purchased the site, and archeological work and living history events continue under the oversight of the Fort Daniel Foundation.

I drew research for this article from The Heritage Newsletter, the Gwinnett Archeology Bulletin, and the New Georgia Encyclopedia. Photos were taken at Fort Daniel’s October 2020 Living History Faire. And yes, this research has produced a new historical novel that's currently with my agent, A Secondhand Betrothal.

The accoutrements of a War of 1812 militiaman

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for the historical imprints of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of a dozen published novels and a number of novellas. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses!

Connect with Denise here:
Monthly Newsletter Sign-up
Website
Facebook
Twitter
BookBub

The Cherokee Lighthorse Brigade

by Denise Weimer

As I’ve approached this month’s release of my Southeastern frontier romance, Bent Tree Bride, I’ve delved into some related historical topics on HHH Blog. We talked about how the Red Stick War—the part of the War of 1812 that involved Creek Indians allied to the British, against Cherokees allied to the Americans—began in modern-day Alabama (https://www.hhhistory.com/2021/01/the-trouble-tecumseh-stirred.html).

Many readers are surprised to learn that in the early 1800s, the Cherokee Indians had adopted many of the ways of the white settlers, including farming, weaving, European education, recording their language and starting a newspaper, and forms of government. This attempt to blend in and secure their land also extended to military endeavors. When the Tennessee militia—later joined by those in Georgia and Mississippi Territory—asked for allies against the Red Stick Creeks, the Cherokee Council responded by promising five to seven hundred men for a Cherokee Regiment that would fight under General Andrew Jackson.

Mistrust of their Cherokee counterparts ran through the militia. After all, the Cherokees had been enemies as recently as the late-1700s. And while the battles had cooled in the twenty years prior to 1813, the Cherokees had not sat idle. Young men were trained to split a coconut or a melon with a tomahawk at a range of thirty feet. They were also skilled knife fighters, archers, and even excellent shots with the older muskets to which they had access. Many were also former or present members of the mounted Cherokee Lighthorse Brigade. 

What was the Cherokee Lighthorse?

In 1797, with the encouragement of U.S. Indian agents, the Cherokee Council created the first Lighthorse force, marking a move from leadership by charismatic war chiefs toward an Americanized, paramilitary structure. The name was taken from the rapid cavalry movements of “Lighthorse” Harry Lee during the Revolutionary War. The organization allowed a place for young Cherokee men to achieve esteem during a time when war no longer offered a passage to adulthood. Indian Agent Benjamin Harrison pledged to any who served honorably a rifle engraved with that man's name. Six Regulators, including a captain and a lieutenant, rode in each company.

The Ridge, a.k.a. Major Ridge after the Creek War

Cherokee Chief The Ridge encouraged the end of the tribe’s blood laws, where a murderer’s fate was up to the victim’s family. If the murderer fled, a member of his family could be killed in his stead. Agreeing, in 1808, the Cherokee Council adopted the Nation’s first set of written laws based on the U.S. Constitution. Soon thereafter, they outlawed blood revenge and passed an act appointing “Regulators” (called “Lighthorsemen” by the 1820s) to suppress horse stealing and robbery, to protect widows and orphans, and to kill any person accused of resisting their authority. Eventually, they dealt with other crimes such as cattle-rustling, adultery, rape, and murder. Ridge and his recruits rode between villages mediating disputes and arresting criminals, tasks once performed by Indian agents. Whippings were a common form of punishment. The criminals were turned over to tribal courts for trial and sentencing. The troop also curbed the influx of any unruly white settlers into Cherokee Territory.

Plaque showing Cherokee warriors at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, 1814

**For more information, Toward the Setting Sun by Brian Hicks and “Souls in the Treetops: Cherokee War, Masculinity, and Community, 1760-1820,” a dissertation by Susan Marie Abram.**

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for the historical imprints of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of almost a dozen published novels and a number of novellas. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses! 

TODAY IS RELEASE DAY for Bent Tree Bride! https://www.amazon.com/Bent-Tree-Bride-Denise-Weimer-ebook/dp/B08Q8K5YD6/

Connect with Denise here:
Monthly Newsletter Sign-up
Website
Facebook
Twitter
BookBub