The Farthest Settlement on the Georgia Frontier

by Denise Weimer

Travel with me today back to the 1810s, to the westernmost outpost on the Georgia frontier before you crossed into Creek or Cherokee lands. We’re in the Piedmont, that rolling, red-clay land south of the Appalachians of hills, hardwood forests, creeks, and rivers. At the last stagecoach stop west, near the source of the Appalachee River, local farmers established Hog Mountain community, a place where they could buy, sell, and trade livestock. By 1811, Moore and Maltbie, natives of Connecticut, ran a trading post. Included among the inventory of goods:

Corded and feather beds, walnut sideboards, Windsor chairs, candlesticks, spinning wheels, looms, reels, looking glasses, pewter basins, chairs, copper stills, Dutch ovens, iron spiders, teakettles, cedar piggins, jugs, decanters, London window glass, wine glasses, dueling pistols, shot, powder horns, gunpowder, saw-gins, Swede iron, saddles, gigs, harness, corsets for men, tin trunks, bombazets (thin twill-woven worsted cloth with smooth finished used for dresses and coats), osnaburgs (rough, coarse, durable cotton fabric in plain weave originally made of flax), saddlebags, muscovado sugar, Jamaica and Antigua rum, Spanish brandy, Philadelphia rye whiskey, Teneriffe wine, claret, Holland gin, Malaga wine, London porter, Spanish “segars”

Notice the corsets for men? 

When Moore died on a trip to New York to purchase goods, William Maltbie prepared to dispose of the floundering business. And then he met Philadelphia Winn, the thirteen-year-old daughter of Elisha Winn, a justice and later judge and state representative who owned over seven thousand acres and a plantation-plain house on the river (see The Elisha Winn House, https://www.hhhistory.com/search?q=Elisha+winn+house). William and Philadelphia were married in the home’s parlor. William continued to run the trading post until 1821, when he helped establish the town of Lawrenceville, where he became the first postmaster.

Shadrack Bogan moved to Hog Mountain in 1815. He ran a trading post that sold beads to Cherokee women and blankets and firewater to the braves and soon built Hog Mountain House. An interesting tale of that inn is included in my new release, A Counterfeit Betrothal, of four travelers who stopped there, then were never seen again, though their relatives came to search for them. Years later, their carriage was found on a distant hill.

A central fixture of Hog Mountain community was Fort Daniel, speculated to have been built around the turn of the century prior (see A Fort on the Georgia Frontier, https://www.hhhistory.com/search?q=A+Fort+on+the+Georgia+Frontier). By 1812, Red Stick Creek warriors allied to the British posed a threat to the frontier, so in the fall and winter of 1813, Fort Daniel was rebuilt and militia sent to relieve the locals already serving in ten-day rotations. Isham Williams, a local cattle drover, supplied beef to the soldiers. Fort Daniel served as a staging point for the building of Atlanta’s Peachtree Road, 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’ll be at their annual October fair with A Counterfeit Betrothal. If you’re local, come see me and enjoy some Federal-era fun!

NEW RELEASE, Book One of the Scouts of the Georgia Frontier, A Counterfeit Betrothal:

At the farthest Georgia outpost this side of hostile Creek Territory, Jared Lockridge serves his country as a scout to redeem his father’s botched heritage. Then he comes across a burning cabin and a traumatized woman just widowed by a fatal shot. Lame in one foot, Esther has always known she is secondhand goods, but the gentle carpenter-turned-scout draws out her heart…even though his is already pledged to another. His family’s love offers hope even as violence erupts along the frontier—and Jared’s investigation into local incidents brings danger to their doorstep.

https://www.amazon.com/Counterfeit-Betrothal-Scouts-Georgia-Frontier-ebook/dp/B0C8ZP46QD/

Denise Weimer writes historical and contemporary romance from her home in North Georgia and also serves as a freelance editor and the Acquisitions & Editorial Liaison for Wild Heart Books. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.

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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!

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