Liberty County,
located on the Georgia coast, was one of the seven Georgia counties
created from the original colonial parishes.The Guale Indians
inhabited that area from prehistoric times, and in the eighteenth
century the tribe became a part of the Muskogee or Creek
Confederation. The Spanish placed a mission on St. Catherines
Island, known as Mission Santa Catalina de Guale, in the late
sixteenth century among the Guale Indians. In the early 1750s
English settlers, including a group of Congregationalists from
Dorchester, South Carolina, located in the area between the Medway
and Newport rivers.
Shortly before the American Revolution (1775-83), a number of
people who later became prominent in the new state and republic
settled in Liberty County, including Nathan Brownson, Mark Carr,
James Dunwoody, John Elliott Sr., Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall,
Lachlan McIntosh, James Screven, and Daniel Stewart. In the 1770s
William Bartram traveled through the area during his famous
expedition.
In 1775 St. John's Parish, one of three parishes that would
eventually make up Liberty County, was the first area in Georgia to
send a representative to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.In that year the citizens of St. John's Parish
gathered in the Congregational Church in Midway, where they elected
Lyman Hall to represent them in the Continental Congress. They sent
several wagonloads of rice with him to feed the Continental troops
surrounding Boston, Massachusetts. Because St. John's Parish was
the first in Georgia to vote for liberty, the new county created
from this parish on February 5, 1777, was given the name
Liberty.
The seaport of Sunbury was established in 1758 and was the county
seat of Liberty until 1798. During the Revolution, Sunbury and
adjacent Fort Morris were captured by the British in 1779. The
British remained in control of Sunbury and the surrounding area
until the end of the war. At the time of their evacuation, British
troops burned both Sunbury and Fort Morris. In 1798 the seat of
Liberty County moved to Riceboro and in 1836 to its present
location, Hinesville.
During the antebellum period Liberty County was the site of many
rice and cotton plantations. During these years, agriculturalist
and journalist William Louis Jones, African American educator Susie
Taylor King, and Baptist minister Patrick Hues Mell were born in
the county, while prominent citizens of the time included Roswell
King, Charles C. Jones Jr., and brothers John and Joseph
LeConte.
During the Civil War (1861-65) Liberty County and Sunbury again
became the back door to the conquest of Savannah when Union troops
under General William T. Sherman arrived in December 1864 on the
March to the Sea. After the war, timber and turpentine industries
replaced cotton and rice plantations, and continue to be the
mainstays of the economy. Educational institutions for both whites
(Bradwell Institute) and former slaves (Dorchester Academy) sprang
up in the county. Bradwell Institute, founded by Samuel Dowse
Bradwell, remains as one of the two county high schools. Dorchester
Academy operated as a school for African Americans until the World
War II period (1941-45). The structure was used in 1963 by Martin
Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders to coordinate their
efforts to end segregation in Birmingham, Alabama.
In 1940 a large section of northern Liberty County was purchased by
the U.S. government for use as a military base. Fort Stewart, home
of the Army's Third Infantry Division, remains a major Liberty
County employer and has a significant economic impact on this
area.
A lack of development in more than 200 years has left many of the
county's historic structures intact. A shift in the late twentieth
century from an agricultural economy to more modern development
endangers these sites but brings economic opportunity. The
challenge facing the county today is how to preserve its heritage
while encouraging prosperity for its citizens.
Source: newgeorgiaencyclopedia.org
This cache is a small ammo can hidden about 75 ft
off the main trail. Should be a pretty easy find. It is
located at the base of a large tree. Watch out for the
spiders, there are some huge ones out along the trail. The
picture above is one I spotted while out hiding the cache.
In
the front of the log book is a number, write it down, you will need
it for the final cache. Check out the other caches in the
series.