TALIAFERRO COUNTY

 

Taliaferro County was once known as "Five Points" because it was created from five counties:  Hancock, Greene, Oglethorpe, Wilkes, and Warren.  It was designated in 1825, the sixty-fifth county to be created, and was named for Colonel Benjamin Taliaferro.  The Colonel had served in Lee's Legion during the Revolution and later was elected to Congress where he served from 1799 to 1802.  Crawfordville, the county seat, was named for William H. Crawford who had also served as an officer in the Revolutionary War. 

 

Crawford was appointed Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, serving two terms, and then represented our nation at the Court of Napoleon.

A Revolutionary War battle was fought at the town of Sharon in the eastern part of the county.

The extreme western border of the county, at the community of Robinson, is the site of three Indian mounds plus great cairns of white stone on a ridge above the Ogeechee River.  These are presumed to be ceremonial mounds probably erected by the Yuchis, who were of Iroquois-Mohawk origin.  They warred with both the Creek and Cherokee nations until they were driven west of the Chattahoochee River in the Yamassee War of 1715.  Some of the Yuchis took refuge in the northern part of Florida and melded with the Seminoles.

 

Crawfordville was the home of Alexander Stephens.  Born in a log cabin in Taliaferro County in 1812, Stephens served six consecutive terms in the state legislature and was elected to Congress before and after the Civil War.  He was also Governor of Georgia for one year before his death.  Liberty Hall, his home, is now restored and the center of Alexander H. Stephens State Park.