Newton County was formed in 1821

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Pictured is the Bank of Covington and Opera House in downtown Covington in the late 1800s. Special Photo | Historical Society of Newton County

Newton was formed in 1821 from Henry, Jasper and Walton counties

By TAYLOR BECK

tbeck@covnews.com

Newton County was created due to the increasing population in its neighboring counties.

Enacted by the Georgia General Assembly on Dec. 24, 1821, Newton County was formed from the three existing counties of Henry, Jasper and Walton. The action came nearly 33 years after Georgia was granted statehood on Jan.2, 1788.

Newton was bordered by DeKalb, Henry, Jasper, Morgan and Walton counties until Butts County was formed from portions of Henry and Monroe counties in 1825 and Rockdale County was formed out of Newton and DeKalb in 1870.

Newton County was named for Sgt. John Newton, a Revolutionary War soldier and companion of Sgt. William Jasper, who was the namesake for Jasper County.

At the time, the State Constitution provided that when the population of a county reached a certain level, the General Assembly was to alter the county’s boundaries and create a new county. New counties were also created for other reasons, such as better maintaining law and order, regulating methods for legalizing land and deed records, and promoting education.

Newton County was first inhabited by the Creek Indians until 1813 when Governor Thorp negotiated a treaty in which the Creeks gave up their claim to the land. The yielding of Indian lands and the state land lotteries of 1805, 1807, 1820 and 1821 were very important in forming Newton County. The Creek Nation ceded the land distribution to the U.S. in a treaty held Nov. 14, 1805, which resulted in the 1807 land lottery. The last of the Creek Indians were banished to Oklahoma over the “Trail of Tears” after a decade.

The first white settlers of

Newton County were initially said to have their sites on the eastern side of the county, but many later moved back toward the western side due to a lack of adequate water.

At the time Newton County was formed, Brick Store — a general store and stage coach shop — was the center of activity. The first session of court ordered by the General Assembly was held at the Brick Store, which was the residence of Martin Kolb at the time. Brick Store is located in the easternmost part of the county. The property was reportedly 250 acres, which was drawn in the 1820 land lottery of Walton County by a Hall County man, then later sold to Kolb for $200 in May 1821. Calculations show $200 then would have been equivalent to nearly $5,000 today.

The General Assembly insisted the county seat be in the center of the county, so it was later moved from Brick Store and established in the central part of the county first known as Newtonsborough, which later officially became the city of Covington in 1822.

A county seat, which was the place where a courthouse and local government center would be located, was organized for every county established.

Covington was named for Gen. Leonidas Covington, who was considered a hero of the War of 1812. It went on to become the mecca for the county’s activity and has grown to be the largest of all municipalities with a population of more than 14,000.

Through various letters published by the Newton County Historical Society, life in Newton County at the time of its inception began as a “frontier … and rapidly became a settled farm community.” The area had an abundance of resources, including timber for construction, good soil for cultivation and three major rivers to power industry and support agriculture. The majority of Newton County is located in the Upper Ocmulgee River sub-basin of the Altamaha River basin. A small eastern portion of the county, from southwest of Social Circle to southwest of Newborn, is located in the Upper Oconee River sub-basin of the same Altamaha River basin.

In one of the earliest letters from Newton County, written in 1824, Joseph L. Lawrence described the new county to his brother-in-law, saying the county was “very desirable” and had “the appearance of being healthy, the water mostly good, the land is various.” He said the land was filled with “oak, pine, poplar, hickory, dogwood, lin, buckeye white and shumake with and prickly ash.” Lawrence also shared that he purchased one lot of land that consisted of 202.5 acres with a cabin on it and 20 acres cleared for farming, all for $500.

“The best judges of land say that I got the land very cheap,” Lawrence said.

Other letters, such as one from Ignatius N. Few of Oxford written to his cousin in New York in 1839, paint pictures of Newton County’s nature and beauty.

“I have often felt a pleasure intense and indefinable in passing through the primitive and stately forests of our new counties rich in variety of outline and color, but still as death, the solemn silence of inanimate nature, often remaining unbroken for hours of travel,” Few wrote. “The trees become your companions and are individualized, they have their several expressions, and you feel if, could their tongues be unloosed, they would pour into your ear the history of their personal joys and sorrows through the centuries which have fled since they expanded their first leaves to the genial beams of the sun.”

Researchers believe Newton County’s population in 1830 was approximately 11,155, and it would not exceed 20,000 until after 1920. Now a century later, the county’s population is nearly 113,000.

Newton County today is governed by an elected Board of Commissioners consisting of a full-time chairman, who is elected at large, and five district commissioners. Newton County has five municipalities, including Covington, Mansfield, Newborn Oxford and Porterdale, that are governed by mayors and city councils.

Newton County, 1870, before Rockdale County was formed out of Newton and DeKalb counties.

Georgia Department of Archives and History