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Griffin's History
Spalding County
The land which is now Spalding County was claimed in the 1540’s by Spaniards as part of Florida. Then, in 1629, England declared the land part of South Carolina. Not until 1764 was this area an official part of the colony called Georgia. Led by Chief McIntosh, the Creek Indians ceded all land between the Flint and Ocmulgee Rivers and north to the Chattahoochee River on January 8, 1821, in the First Treaty of Indian Springs.
A new treaty
Two years later, the treaty was declared invalid because of rumors of bribery and coercion. Chief McIntosh signed another treaty with the white man and was subsequently executed by a faction of the tribe opposed to giving away lands. Although no Creek settlements existed in Spalding, the familiar McIntosh Road was an important trail leading to Indian Springs, a meeting place for Indians. The Springs’ highly sulfured waters were thought to have healing powers.
More counties were created
After the treaty, five counties were created by the Georgia General Assembly: Monroe, Henry, Fayette, Houston and Dooly. The next year, Pike County was carved from Monroe and Henry. Not until December 20, 1851, was Spalding County founded. It was created from parts of Pike, Henry, and Fayette counties.
Griffin
Early leaders were desperate to settle the newly acquired land, so it was given away in a lottery system. Winners almost always used their 202.5 acre lots for farming, especially cotton. The only way to transport goods to Macon, the nearest market, was by wagon. Better transportation was a necessity. The solution to the problem was tracks, rails and locomotion.
The Monroe Railroad
The Railroad, owned by General Lewis Lawrence Griffin, received authority to build a line from Macon to Forsyth in 1833. More charters were granted to other companies. Tracks were planned to connect Macon to Savannah, Augusta to Madison and Chattanooga to a tiny town called Terminus.
A New Vision
General Griffin envisioned a town that would prosper at the crossings of a North-South line and a tract running East-West. After determining where these railroads would meet, he bought 800 acres in Pike County from Bartholomew Still. Griffin made a plan for the new town which included wide roadways, plots for six churches, two schools, parade grounds, and a cemetery. William Leak bought the first acre on June 8, 1840 for the tremendous sum of $1000.00. In 1842, the first steam engine came through town.
Official Incorporation
The railroad attracted cotton growers who supported merchants in town. Soon, professional people were settling in a place which was wilderness only a few years before. Griffin was officially incorporated on December 28, 1843. That same year, Marthasville (once Terminus) was incorporated, and in two years would be renamed Atlanta.
Tough Times & Expansion
The Depression of 1843 halted the Monroe Railroad’s construction. Plans of an East-West line to connect in Griffin were forgotten.
After the Monroe Railroad was sold under court order, the Georgia Railroad’s line was extended to Atlanta, not Griffin, as the General had hoped. In 1855, a fire destroyed an entire block on the east side of Hill Street. But also in that year, the town emerged from the depression, cotton flourished once again, and business and population boomed.
John Henry "Doc" Holliday
John Henry Holliday was born on August 14, 1851 in Griffin, Georgia to Henry Burroughs Holliday and Alice Jane Holliday née McKey. He was baptized on March 21, 1852 in the Presbyterian Church of Griffin. John’s parents were respected Griffin citizens. Alice ran a very religious household. Henry was the first Clerk of Superior Court of Spalding County. He was part of the Confederate Army and in 1862, left it with the rank of Major.
John's mother died of tuberculosis on September 16, 1866, when John was 15 years old. Three months later, his father remarried Rachel Martin. Shortly after the marriage, the family moved to Valdosta, Georgia, where John attended the Valdosta Institute. There he received a strong classical secondary education in rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, history and languages — principally Latin, but also French and some ancient Greek. In 1870, 19 year-old John Henry left home to begin dental school in Philadelphia. On March 1, 1872, he received the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. Later that year, he opened a dental office with Arthur C. Ford in Atlanta.
Not long after beginning his dental practice, Doc was diagnosed with tuberculosis. It is possible he contracted the disease from his mother. He was given only a few months to live, although it was thought that moving to the drier and warmer southwestern part of the United States might help to reduce the deterioration of his health.
In Dallas, Doc attempted many times to continue his dental practice, but his continuous coughing deterred patients. Doc was an educated man and learned the skills of poker very quickly. In the saloons, patrons paid no attention to his constant coughing, and there, Doc could also drink to ease the pain of his disease.
On November 8, 1887, Doc died in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Because of his participation in the famous gunfight at the O. K. Corral that lasted less than one minute, Doc’s name will live forever in western history.
Check out the cache in Griffin that bears the name of one of her more famous sons.
The Cache
To find the cache and claim the find there are six requirements. The cache location will be found through the use of simple math skills and the finding of a couple National Geodetic Survey markers located in downtown. The code required to access the cache will be found through a tour of historic markers in the downtown area. All the locations are handicapped acessible, and can easily be walked to from the cache coordinates.
Cache Container
To find the cache, you must find the NGS markers DG2416 and DG0889. The first marker will be required to determine the north coordinates of the cache container. Find the benchmark at the old Griffin post office. There are a few numbers stamped on the face of the disc. You will be looking for the first three digits of the elevation. Multiply that number by 15, then add 214. This will give you the N33 xx.xxx coordinate.
The second marker will be required to determine the west coordinates of the cache container. Find the benchmark in the curb adjacent to the Spalding County Courthouse. There are two numbers stamped on the face of this disc. Multiply the four digit date by the three digit identifier, then subtract 320926. This will give you the W084 xx.xxx coordinate.
I have permission from the owner to place this cache.
Container Code
There is a four digit lock securing the cache container lid. To find the code numbers, you will have to tour downtown.
The first number is going to be found on a historic marker sign located by the south-east corner of the courthouse (Spalding County marker at County Courthouse), just off South Sixth Street. There is a four digit date on the bottom right had corner of the sign. The first code number is the last number of the date.
The second number is going to be found on a plaque under a statue. The statue is of General Lewis Lawrence Griffin and is located just outside the South Hill Street entrance of the City of Griffin offices. The last digit of the year that the statue was erected will be the second digit of the code.
The third number is going to be found on a plaque near the entrance of the old Griffin Grocery Company building, which now houses the Griffin Regional Welcome Center on West Broad Street. The second digit of the four digit year immediately following the word "circa" will be the third digit of the code.
The fourth number is going to be found at the bottom of the inscription at the cornerstone on the South-West corner of the Old Griffin Post Office, on the corner of South Eighth Street and West Solomon Street. There is a year written in ancient numerals that will need to be translated. Subtract the second two digits of the year from the first two digits of the year to find your fourth code number.
Good luck and have fun with this. This is meant to be a park and walk, where all locations are walked to from a central location. There is the potential to walk about a mile and a half, but a little research can cut that down. Take a day and patronize some of the business downtown, and check out some of the other local caches.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.