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On the afternoon of April 2nd, 2025, Pickens County resident Jessica McCabe found a cannonball near the bridge off Swan Bridge road

Charles Wallace Howard was born in 1811 in Savannah, Georgia. After graduating from college he attended seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister and, in 1838 traveled to England to research the colonization records for the State of Georgia. Reverend Charles Howard In the late 1830s Charles Howard moved to Cass County and bought 800 acres of land north of Kingston and along the Connesaga River. During that time the county lines were redraw

John Azor Kellogg wrote a memoir of the time he spent with the people of north Georgia that his family published after his death. He was...

Pickens County, in the Appalachian Mountains and one of Georgia's smallest counties in size and population in 1860, existed as an...

In 1850, Tate, Atkinson, and Company opened a marble quarry near the Georgia Marble Company's present location. Three years later, Pickens County was officially formed. After the Civil War, the Tate family was operating a sawmill on Long Swamp Creek in the section that is colloquially called Pendley Creek. At the time, a main road came north from Tate and bisected the old Dawsonville Jasper Highway (Cove Road) before heading directly to the sawmill. Afterward, the road

The home guards remain one of the most confusing aspects of the history of the Civil War in Georgia. Family tales and reminiscences...

This blast furnace was built in 1852 in Bartow County off Stamp Creek. Originally called the Union Furnace, its ownership changed hands more than a half dozen times between its start and 1880. In 1875, this site was the first furnace in the United States to produce a commercial, high-quality ferro-manganese product at 67 percent purity. Its one-time owner, Willard P. Ward, had trained in Europe before venturing into the business in the United States. Ferromanganese is use

During the heart of the Civil War, Pickens County was torn between sides. The flag that flew over the courthouse yard was a Union flag. Yet, many of the residents fought on each side. Many of the Darnell family fought for the North, while those from the Fields side predominantly fought for the South. And while many neighboring counties were far more aligned with the Confederacy, as with Pickens's history with race and slavery, Pickens was more of a mixed bag. There we

During the Civil War and for several decades that followed, criminals and vigilantes from various places around the United States would don Klan-like outfits and terrorize citizens. In many newspapers, they were commonly referred to as Night Riders. They were named after their preferred time to commit crimes while on horseback. The Night Riders, like the Home Guards, gangs, and Irregular units of the Confederate Army, frequently harried and preyed upon law-abiding citizen

The Keith Plantation of Cherokee County The overgrown entrance to the Keith Plantation. Note the main house in the background According to local sources, the Keith Plantation near Canton, GA, in present-day Keithsburg* during the Civil War. The property held over 3,300 acres along the Etowah River two miles north of Etowah. (Note: At one point in the past, Canton was named Etowah) The plantation had a large brick house made from a kiln with red clay from the Etowah River.

Peter Cantrell's grave marker, not at actual site of his murder, placed by Dutch Cantrell of Canton. Located on private property on LL 114. During and immediately after the Civil War tensions were high in Pickens County and roving bands of men, sometimes assigned to Home Guards (informal companies of men) would kill their enemies in the county. Peter Cantrell was one of perhaps a dozen men that were