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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

The Poet Bury me in a nameless grave! I came from God the world to save. I brought them wisdom from above: Worship, and liberty, and love. They slew me for I did disparage Therefore Religion, Law, and Marriage. So be my grave without a name That earth may swallow up my shame! Aleister Crowley, infamous poet and black magician of the mid-twentieth Century. Potter's field "piece of ground reserved as a burying place for friendless paupers, unknown persons, and criminals" (1520

The history of violence, especially when used to protect tradition, and/or fighting against a centralized power structure is frequently found in the historical record. A common perception is that all, if not nearly all of the violence committed by vigilantes groups in the United States was inspired by racism. (K.K.K., Christian Nationalist Movement, Black Panthers) And while this is historically accurate, the anti-revenuer groups of North Georgia during the late 1800s did

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...

For years, I regularly contributed articles to the now gone North Georgia Journal and Georgia Backroads. In the process, I learned much...

Many millions in eastern North America live within a short distance of amazing ruins as old as two millennia but do not know it....

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

In 1890, a small hamlet in south-central Pickens County named Jockey arose near the Cagle Mills on Sharp Mountain Creek. A post office was created in the same building as the local merchandise store, thereby designating Jockey as a ‘post-hamlet.’ An October 11, 1890, Pickens County Herald article detailed the creation. The Postmaster of the newly appointed post office was John Wesley Cagle. He was appointed under the term of President Harrison. According to Alonzo Cagle

A few years ago, I ran across a reference for a reported moonshine still in a North Georgia gated community. Initially, I had doubts about the location. However, this was before I knew much about moonshining. I walked up a draw (def - a terrain feature formed by two parallel ridges or spurs with low ground in between them) about 500 yards uphill into the woods. There were remnants of an ephemeral stream about six inches from the abandoned rock furnace. The rock furnace

(1884 - 2023) Since 1884, the year of the first documented tornado in Pickens County, there have been many minor and several devasting...

In February of 1884, a tornado visited Pickens County and cut a 15-mile path, leaving several residents dead (including the Cagle and other families) A vivid description of the tornado is in the Feb 21, 1884 cover of the Atlanta Constitution. Cagletown began in 1869 and today is known merely as Cagle. Historically it was mostly an agricultural town started by the Cagle family that had first migrated from North Carolina to the Hickory log section of Cherokee County until t

Carmel Mission, which took its name on January 7, 1824 - previously named Taloney Mission, was a missionary outpost of the Presbyterians established in 1819 in Gilmer County (present-day Pickens County). The property today is located about two miles northwest of Talking Rock, 12 miles south of Ellijay, just north of 136, and south of Talking Rock Creek by a fifth of a mile on private property. (LL83) Carmel was located near Sanderstown (named after John and George Sander

61-year-old Gary Michael Hilton, a.k.a. The National Forest Serial Killer, finally got caught in 2008 after committing a grizzly series of murders. He had killed several people in the National Forests of North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The entire scope of his murders is beyond what I'll cover in this article. I will focus on the tragic case of Meredith Emerson, due to its proximity to North Georgia. (In no way do I mean to diminish the importance of the other lives he

In 1877, a one-story dogtrot-style home was built off of the old Dawsonville-Jasper Road (present-day Cove Road). Over the hill and south of the main east-west thoroughfare, the home sits in a field surrounded by woods. A dogtrot home has an open breezeway built between two sections of the enclosed house. This home was constructed of hewn logs, most likely oak. The dogtrot style of architecture was common in the late 19th Century and in many instances, these homes were u

In 1829, a man named Young Potts moved to Dawson County from South Carolina. He hit the ground running and made a small fortune in his early prospecting in the late 1820s. Within a few years, in an attempt to maintain anonymity, he and his family moved into the rugged terrain known as the Wolfscratch Wilderness in 1836. Located on LL 131 and 98, Young Potts purchased nearly 500 acres of land in the remote forests of Cherokee County. Young Potts built his house near a spri

The Great Depression of 1929 caused massive hardships across the United States of America. In response to the dire economic situation, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created a series of public works programs designed to employ thousands of Americans in different areas of infrastructure, agriculture, and forestry-related jobs. For nine years, the Civilian Conservation Corps changed the American landscape by building fire towers, fire brakes, roads, and planting trees.

The Late Great Professor Perrow By Chris Feldt “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.“ - Henry David Thoreau Eber Carle Perrow, grandfather of Pickens County residents Janet Vardaman and Margo Austin, was born on December 7th, 1880 in Tye River, Virginia. When he was eight-years-old, he moved with his p

If you ask old-time residents of Pickens County, they'll tell you that Murphy Bottom off of Jerusalem Church Road (near two branches of Scarecorn Creek) in West Pickens used to be the place to find arrowheads. Some people mention that a village may have been there at one time. Archaeology sites in Georgia are The site was originally designated as 9 Pi 12. It also has the designator of 9 Pi 103. The real topic of interest was always the who, when, where, and what. The why

The Georgia Forestry Commission keeps a list of all of the champion trees of different species within our state. A champion tree is the...