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Hereward the Wake

Hereward the Wake (Traditional pronunciation /ˈhɛ.rɛ.ward/, modern pronunciation /ˈhɛ.rɪ.wəd/ ) (c. 1035) (also known as Hereward the Outlaw or Hereward the Exile) was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman and a leader of local resistance to the Norman Conquest of England. His base when he led the rebellion against the Norman rulers was the Isle of Ely, in eastern England. According to legend, he roamed the Fens, which covers parts of the modern counties of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk, and led popular opposition to William the Conqueror.

Hereward is an Old English name, composed of the elements here, "army", and ward "guard" (cognate with the Old High German name Heriwart). The epithet "the Wake", first recorded in the 14th century, may mean "the watchful" or derive from the Anglo-Norman Wake family, which later claimed descent from him.

Gesta Herewardi
The Gesta Herewardi (or Herwardi) is a Middle Latin text, probably written around 1109–31. The 12th-century Latin text purports to be a translation of an earlier (and now lost) work in Old English, with gaps in the damaged original filled out from oral history. The earliest surviving copy of the Gesta Herewardi is in a manuscript produced around the middle of the 13th century at Peterborough Abbey, along with other materials relating to the abbey. This 13th-century manuscript is known as the "Register of Robert of Swaffham".

What is known of the earlier history of the Gesta Herewardi comes from its prologue, according to which the original text was written in Old English by Leofric, a priest of Hereward's household, who became one of his companions in arms during Hereward's resistance to William the Conqueror. Leofric's work may have been precipitated by Hereward's death. The prologue also reports that the earlier, Old English version was badly damaged but not destroyed: the author of the Gesta Herewardi had been instructed by his superior to seek out the remains of Leofric's work and to translate it into Latin. This he did, but, owing to its damaged condition, he filled in the resulting lacunae from oral history, at his superior's insistence. It has been argued that the author of Gesta Herewardi was Richard of Ely, and that his superior was Bishop Hervey of Ely, who held that office from 1109 to 1131.

The version of the Gesta Herewardi that exists today is a transcription of this work, which was incorporated into a book containing charters and other material relating to the abbey at Peterborough known as the "Register of Robert of Swaffham", but variant descriptions such as "Robert of Swaffham's Book" are also found. According to the historian Janet D. Martin, the book was created in "about 1250", and originally ended with the Gesta Herewardi, but further material, unrelated to the Hereward story, was added in the 14th century.

A serial edition of the Gesta Herewardi translated by W. D. Sweeting was published from 1895 as a supplement to Fenland Notes and Queries: this was a quarterly magazine, published at Peterborough, of which Sweeting was editor at the time. He used a transcription of the Gesta Herewardi by S. H. Miller to produce an edition in which the transcription and translation appear in parallel columns.

Family
Partly because of the sketchiness of evidence for his existence, his life has become a magnet for speculators and amateur scholars. The earliest references to his parentage, in the Gesta, make him the son of Edith, a descendant of Oslac of York, and Leofric of Bourne, nephew of Ralph the Staller. Alternatively, it has also been argued that Leofric, Earl of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva were Hereward's real parents. There is no evidence for this, and Abbot Brand of Peterborough, stated to have been Hereward's uncle, does not appear to have been related to either Leofric or Godiva. It is improbable that − if Hereward were a member of this prominent family – his parentage would not be a matter of record. Some modern research suggests him to have been Anglo-Danish with a Danish father, Asketil; since Brand is also a Danish name, it makes sense that the Abbot may have been Asketil's brother. Hereward's apparent ability to call on Danish support may also support this theory.

Hereward's birth is conventionally dated as 1035/36 because the Gesta Herewardi states that he was first exiled in 1054 in his 18th year. However, since the account in the Gesta of the early part of his exile (in Scotland, Cornwall and Ireland) contains fantastic elements, it is hard to know if it is trustworthy. Peter Rex, in his 2005 biography of Hereward, points out that the campaigns in which he is reported to have fought in the region of Flanders seem to have begun around 1063 and suggests that, if he was 18 at the time of his exile, he was born in 1044/45. But this would be based on the assumption that the early part of the story is largely fictitious.

His birthplace is supposed to be in or near Bourne in Lincolnshire. The Domesday Book shows that a man named Hereward held lands in the parishes of Witham on the Hill and Barholm with Stow in the southwestern corner of Lincolnshire as a tenant of Peterborough Abbey; prior to his exile, Hereward had also held lands as a tenant of Croyland Abbey at Crowland, 8 mi east of Market Deeping in the neighbouring fenland. In those times it was a boggy and marshy area. Since the holdings of abbeys could be widely dispersed across parishes, the precise location of his personal holdings is uncertain but was certainly somewhere in south Lincolnshire.

Exile
According to the Gesta Herewardi, Hereward was exiled at the age of eighteen for disobedience to his father and disruptive behaviour, which caused problems among the local community. He was declared an outlaw by Edward the Confessor. The Gesta tells various stories of his supposed adventures as a young man while in exile in Cornwall, Ireland and Flanders. These include a fight with an enormous bear, and the rescue of a Cornish princess from an unwanted marriage. Many historians consider these tales to be largely fictions. Having arrived in Flanders he joined an expedition against "Scaldemariland" (probably islands in Scheldt estuary). Historian Elizabeth van Houts considers this aspect of the story to be consistent with evidence concerning expeditions led by Robert the Frisian on behalf of his father Baldwin V, Count of Flanders in the early 1060s. Peter Rex also accepts that these events probably occurred.

At the time of the Norman conquest of England, he was still in exile in Europe, working as a successful mercenary for Baldwin V. According to the Gesta he took part in tournaments in Cambrai. At some point in his exile Hereward is said to have married Turfida, a Gallo-Germanic woman from a wealthy family in Saint-Omer. She is said in the Gesta to have fallen in love with him before she met him, having heard of his heroic exploits.

Return to England
The Gesta Herewardi says Hereward returned to England a few days after the death of Count Baldwin V of Flanders, who died on 1 September 1067. The Gesta says that he discovered that his family's lands had been taken over by the Normans and his brother killed with his head then placed on a spike at the gate to his house. Hereward took revenge on the Normans who killed his brother while they were ridiculing the English at a drunken feast. He allegedly killed fifteen of them with the assistance of one helper. He then gathered followers and went to Peterborough Abbey to be knighted by his uncle Abbot Brand. He returned briefly to Flanders to allow the situation to cool down before returning to England.

The Gesta claims that William de Warenne's brother-in-law Frederick swore to kill Hereward, but Hereward outwitted him and killed him. Since Hereward's killing of Frederick is also attested in the independent Hyde Chronicle, this event is regarded as "almost certainly" true. William himself later pursued Hereward, but Hereward supposedly unhorsed him with an arrow shot.

In 1070 Hereward certainly participated in the anti-Norman insurrection centred on the Isle of Ely. In 1069 or 1070 the Danish king Sweyn Estrithson sent a small army to try to establish a camp on the Isle of Ely. Hereward appears to have joined them. Hereward stormed and sacked Peterborough Abbey in company with local men and Sweyn's Danes. While the Gesta says this was after the main battle at Ely, the Peterborough Chronicle says it was before. The historical consensus is that the Chronicle's account is most accurate. His justification is said to have been that he wished to save the Abbey's treasures and relics from the rapacious Normans led by the new Norman abbot who had ousted his uncle Brand. According to the Gesta he returned the treasures looted from the abbey after having a vision of Saint Peter. However, the Peterborough Chronicle says that the treasure was carried off to Denmark.

Hereward was then joined by a small army led by Morcar, the Saxon former Earl of Northumbria who had been ousted by William. William sent an army to deal with the rebels. In 1071, Hereward and Morcar were forced to retreat to their stronghold and made a desperate stand on the Isle of Ely against the Conqueror's rule. Both the Gesta Herewardi and the Liber Eliensis claim that the Normans made a frontal assault, aided by a huge, mile-long timber causeway, but that this sank under the weight of armour and horses. The Normans then tried to intimidate the English with a witch, who cursed them from a wooden tower, but Hereward managed to set a fire that toppled the tower with the witch in it. The Gesta includes other fantastical tales about Hereward's prowess, including disguising himself as a potter to spy on the king and escaping from captivity.

It is said that the Normans, probably led by one of William's knights named Belasius (Belsar), then bribed the monks of the island to reveal a safe route across the marshes, resulting in Ely's capture. An earlier hillfort now known as Belsar's Hill is still extant and sits astride the much older route known as Aldreth's Causeway, which would have been a direct route from the Isle of Ely to Cambridge.

Morcar was taken and imprisoned, but Hereward is said to have escaped with some of his followers into the wild fenland and to have continued his resistance. This escape is noted in all the earliest surviving sources.

An ancient earthwork about 1.2 mi east of Willingham, Cambridgeshire is still visible at the junction of the old fen causeway and Iram Drove. This circular feature, known as Belsar's Hill, is a potential site for a fort, built by William, from which to attack Ely and Hereward. There were perhaps as few as four causeways onto the isle itself, with this being the southerly route from London and the likely route of William's army.

Later life
There are conflicting accounts about Hereward's life after the fall of Ely. The Gesta Herewardi says Hereward attempted to negotiate with William but was provoked into a fight with a man named Ogger. The fight led to his capture and imprisonment. His followers, however, liberated him when he was being transferred from one castle to another. Hereward's former gaoler persuaded the king to negotiate once more, and he was eventually pardoned by William and lived the rest of his life in relative peace. It also says that he married a second wife after Turfida entered a convent. She is said have been called Alftruda and was the widow of Earl Dolfin.

Geoffrey Gaimar, in his Estoire des Engleis, says instead that Hereward lived for some time as an outlaw in the Fens, but that as he was on the verge of making peace with William, he was set upon and killed by a group of Norman knights. It is also possible that Hereward received no pardon and went into exile, never to be heard from again; this was in fact the fate of many prominent Englishmen after the Conquest. Ogger ("Oger the Breton"), either the person Hereward is supposed to have fought or an heir, appears to have taken over his lands. Joseph Harrop in his 1764 A New History of England, suggests that after his escape from Ely, Hereward went to Scotland.

Epithet "the Wake"
The epithet "the Wake" (Old English 'wæcnan') is first attested in the late 14th-century Peterborough Chronicle, ascribed by its first editor, Joseph Sparke, to the otherwise unknown John of Peterborough. There are two main theories as to the origin of the sobriquet; the usual interpretation is that it means "the watchful". In Charles Kingsley's novel, Hereward acquires it when, with the help of his servant Martin Lightfoot, he foils an assassination attempt during a hunting party by a group of knights jealous of his popularity. A second theory is that the name was given to him by the Wake family, the Norman landowners who gained Hereward's land in Bourne, Lincolnshire, after his death, to imply a family connection and therefore legitimise their claim to the land. The family claimed descent from Hereward's daughter by his second wife, Alftruda. Within the Gesta, Hereward is instead given the epithet 'outlaw'.

Historicity
The existence of Hereward is not generally disputed, but the story of his life, especially as recounted in the Gesta, almost certainly contains exaggerations of his deeds and some outright fictions. Hugh M. Thomas argues that the Gesta is intended to be an entertaining story about an English hero creating a fantasy of successful resistance to the Normans. Hereward is always motivated by honest emotions and displays chivalric values in his warfare, unlike his enemies. His supreme manly prowess is constantly emphasised. Potentially-discreditable episodes such as the looting of Peterborough are excused and even wiped out by stories such as the vision of St. Peter leading him to return the loot.

The fact of Hereward's participation in the events at Ely is attested in early documents such as the annal for 1071 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Another text of the Chronicle also tells of his involvement in the looting. Early sources say nothing about him other than the fact that he was at Ely and that he led the last band of resisters. Estoire des Engleis (c. 1140) says that he had a noble family, but is unspecific. His alleged genealogy is given in the Gesta and the later Historia Croylandensis but with some variations. By the 15th century, the Wake family were claiming descent from him and elevating his ancestry by asserting that he was the son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lady Godiva.

It is possible that some of the stories about Hereward mutated into tales about Robin Hood or influenced them. Hereward nevertheless remained a minor figure until the Victorian period, when the idea of native Anglo-Saxon heroism became popular. Charles Kingsley's 1865 novel Hereward the Wake: the Last of the English elevated Hereward to the position of a national hero. It drew on the theory that traditional English liberties were destroyed by the "Norman yoke", an idea earlier popularised in Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe. Both novels helped create the image of a romantic Anglo-Saxon England violated by Norman tyranny. After its publication Hereward appears in numerous popular historical works.

Legacy

 * HMS Hereward (H93) was an H-class destroyer of the Royal Navy commissioned on 9 December 1936.
 * "Hereward" is the motto of No. 2 Squadron RAF. They are based at RAF Lossiemouth in Moray and their crest contains a Wake knot.
 * BR standard class 7 (otherwise known as the "Britannia Class") locomotive No 70037 carried the name "Hereward the Wake".
 * There is a long-distance footpath through the Cambridgeshire fenland from Peterborough to Ely called the Hereward Way.
 * From 1980 to 2009, a local radio station broadcasting from Peterborough was called Hereward FM before being relaunched as Heart Peterborough.
 * When East Cambridgeshire District Council transferred its housing stock, it created a housing association called "Hereward Housing" to receive the accommodation. This was later taken over by Sanctuary Housing to form Sanctuary Hereward.
 * Hampstead in north London has a preparatory school for boys called Hereward House School.
 * Loughton has a state primary school named after Hereward.
 * Coventry has an integrated-disability college, Hereward College, named after Hereward.
 * Hereward Hall is a boys' boarding house at King's Ely school.
 * The clipper Hereward, a trading vessel built in Glasgow in 1877, was wrecked at Maroubra Beach on 5 May 1898.
 * Hereward wheat, bred by the Plant Breeding Institute (now RAGT Seeds) was the most important and widely-grown Group 1 (bread-making) variety in the UK in the 1990s and 2000s.
 * The Hereward Estate in Bourne is named after him.

19th century

 * The Camp of Refuge, by Charles MacFarlane, pub. 1844
 * Thomas Bulfinch wrote about Hereward the Wake in his work: The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes (1855).
 * Charles Kingsley's novel Hereward the Wake: last of the English (London: Macmillan, 1866) is a highly romanticised account of Hereward's exploits and makes him the son of Earl Leofric of Mercia and the ancestor of the family of Wake.

20th century

 * The Story of Hereward – The Champion of England, novel by Douglas C. Steadman B.A., illustrated by Gertrude Demain Hammond R.I., pub. 1908 by George G. Harrap and Co.
 * Jack Trevor Story (1917–91) wrote a long dramatised life of Hereward for one of Tom Boardman's 1950s boys' annuals.
 * Man With a Sword, by Henry Treece, 1962, published by the Bodley Head, London. Hereward is the hero of the story. In the first episode he is the champion of the Empress Gunhilda of Germany, and at the end his life extends past the death of William I.
 * The 1985 Doctor Who Annual included a short story entitled "The Real Hereward". The premise of this story is that Hereward was an alias adopted by King Harold after surviving the Battle of Hastings.
 * The Saxon Tapestry, by Sile Rice, 1992, published by Hodder & Stroughton LTD, London. Fictional account of the fall of Saxon Britain and Hereward's trials and triumphs. Old motifs and language used this brilliant rendering.
 * "The Last Englishman" by Hebe Weenolsen, published 1951 by Doubleday. A historical fiction novel, tells the story of Hereward's return from exile and resistance against the Normans. Includes a fictional romance between Hereward and a Norman Lady named Althya. Written in a charmingly old-fashioned style.

21st century

 * Hereward is portrayed as a prototype Robin Hood, but also as a drug-taking, psychopathic arsonist, in Mike Ripley's novel The Legend of Hereward the Wake (2007).
 * Brainbiter: The Saga of Hereward the Wake, by Jack Ogden, pub. 2007
 * Conquest by Stewart Binns (2011) is an historical novel covering Hereward's life in dramatic and bloody detail. It takes significant dramatic liberties, projecting that Hereward later took the alias 'Godwin of Ely' and worked his way to the Head of Emperor Alexius's Byzantine forces before taking part in the First Crusade, to become a lead strategist of the Princes' Crusade and advisor of Bohemond of Taranto; he appears thus in the sequel, Crusade.
 * James Wilde has written Hereward (2011), The Devil's Army (2012) and End of Days (2013) chronicling his period in England. The fourth in the series, Wolves of New Rome (2014), takes Hereward and his companions, expelled from England, to Constantinople, meeting new friends and old enemies. The adventure continues in The Immortals (2015) and The Bloody Crown (2016).
 * Man Booker Prize long-listed The Wake (2014) by Paul Kingsnorth is a historical novel written in a shadow version of old English telling the story of another resistance fighter in the fens whose actions are regularly compared to Hereward.
 * In Persona 5 Royal, Hereward is the ultimate Persona of Goro Akechi.

Broadcasting and film

 * The BBC made a 16-episode TV series in 1965 entitled Hereward the Wake, based on Kingsley's novel. Hereward was portrayed by actor Alfred Lynch. However, not one episode of this BBC series has survived, according to the archive records.
 * Hancock's Half Hour – Sid James claims Hereward stayed at Hancock's house as a ploy to get the house renovated by the National Trust.
 * Brian Blessed portrayed Hereward in the TV drama Blood Royal: William the Conqueror (1990).
 * BBC TV Series Horrible Histories, series 4, episode 10, features the Siege of Ely including the deployment of a witch as a weapon against the Saxons.
 * On 26 December 2012 BBC Radio 4 broadcast the story of Hereward as a comic afternoon play, produced by Julia McKenzie, written by David Reed and Humphrey Ker, and performed by the Penny Dreadfuls.

Music

 * "Let There Be More Light," the opening track on Pink Floyd's 1968 album A Saucerful of Secrets, contains the line "the living soul of Hereward the Wake." Roger Waters and Syd Barrett grew up in Cambridgeshire and would have been particularly familiar with the Hereward legend.
 * "Hereward the Wake" is a song on the 2018 album Tales to be Told Volume II by The Mechanisms, a British steampunk band. The song tells the legend of Hereward's life, reimagined in a sci-fi space setting.

title: Hereward the Wake


text:
Charles Kingsley

Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875) was a broad church priest of the Church of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He is particularly associated with Christian socialism, the working men's college, and forming labour cooperatives, which failed, but encouraged later working reforms.

Life and character
Kingsley was born in Holne, Devon, the elder son of the Reverend Charles Kingsley and his wife, Mary Lucas Kingsley. His brother Henry Kingsley (1830–1876) and sister Charlotte Chanter (1828–1882) also became writers. He was the father of the novelist Lucas Malet (Mary St. Leger Kingsley, 1852–1931) and the uncle of the traveller and scientist Mary Kingsley (1862–1900).

Charles Kingsley's childhood was spent in Clovelly, Devon, where his father was curate in 1826–1832 and rector in 1832–1836, and at Barnack, Northamptonshire. He was educated at Bristol Grammar School and Helston Grammar School before studying at King's College London and the University of Cambridge. Charles entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1838, and graduated first class in classics, and senior optime in 1842. He chose to pursue priesthood in the Anglican Church. In 1844, he became Rector of Eversley in Hampshire. In 1859, he was appointed chaplain to Queen Victoria. In 1860, he became Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, and, in 1861, a private tutor to the Prince of Wales.

In 1869, Kingsley resigned his Cambridge professorship and served from 1870 to 1873 as a canon of Chester Cathedral. While there, he founded the Chester Society for Natural Science, Literature and Art, which was prominent in the establishment of the Grosvenor Museum. In 1872, he agreed to become the 19th president of the Birmingham and Midland Institute. In 1873, he was made a canon of Westminster Abbey.

Kingsley sat on the 1866 Edward Eyre Defence Committee along with Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, John Tyndall, and Alfred Tennyson, where he supported Jamaican Governor Edward Eyre's brutal suppression of the Morant Bay Rebellion against the Jamaica Committee. Kingsley was a friend and colleague of Charles Darwin.

One of his daughters, Mary St Leger Kingsley, became known as a novelist under the pseudonym Lucas Malet. Kingsley's biography, written by his widow in 1877, was entitled, Charles Kingsley, his Letters and Memories of his Life.

Kingsley received letters from Thomas Huxley in 1860, and sent letters in 1863 discussing Huxley's early ideas on agnosticism.

Death
Charles Kingsley died of pneumonia on 23 January 1875 at Eversley, Hampshire, aged 55. He was buried there in St. Mary's Churchyard.

Influences and works
Kingsley's interest in history is shown in several of his writings, including The Heroes (1856), a children's book about Greek mythology, and several historical novels, of which the best known are Hypatia (1853), Hereward the Wake (1865) and Westward Ho! (1855). From his book The Heroes the story of Perseus, the Gorgon Slayer was taken and in 1898 republished as The Story of Perseus and the Gorgon's Head.

He was sympathetic to the idea of evolution and was one of the first to welcome Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species. He had been sent an advance review copy and in his response of 18 November 1859 (four days before the book went on sale) stated that he had "long since, from watching the crossing of domesticated animals and plants, learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the permanence of species." Darwin added an edited version of Kingsley's closing remarks to the next edition of his book, stating, "A celebrated author and divine has written to me that 'he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.'" When a heated dispute lasting three years developed over human evolution, Kingsley gently satirised the debate, known as the Great Hippocampus Question, as the "Great Hippopotamus Question".

Kingsley's concern for social reform is illustrated in his classic, The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby (1863), a tale about a boy chimney sweep, which retained its popularity well into the 20th century. The story mentions the main protagonists in the scientific debate over human origins, rearranging his earlier satire as the "great hippopotamus test". The book won a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1963.

Kingsley's chief asset as a novelist lay in his descriptive faculties: the descriptions of South American scenery in Westward Ho!, of the Egyptian desert in Hypatia, and of the North Devon scenery in Two Years Ago. American scenery is vividly and truthfully described, in part stemming from his observations during a lecture tour of the United States that he undertook in 1874 and reported to his wife, Francis Eliza Grenfell Kingsley. The letters were later published. He also published his work At Last, written after he had visited the tropics. His sympathy with children taught him how to gain their interest. His version of the old Greek stories entitled The Heroes, and Water-babies and Madam How and Lady Why, in which he deals with popular natural history, take high rank among books for children. Kingsley was influenced by Frederick Denison Maurice, and was close to many Victorian thinkers and writers, including the Scottish writer George MacDonald.

Kingsley was highly critical of Roman Catholicism and his argument in print with John Henry Newman, accusing him of untruthfulness and deceit, prompted the latter to write his Apologia Pro Vita Sua. Kingsley also wrote poetry and political articles, as well as several volumes of sermons.

Kingsley coined the term pteridomania (meaning "a craze for ferns") in his 1855 book Glaucus, or the Wonders of the Shore.

Anglo-Saxonism
Kingsley was a fervent Anglo-Saxonist, and was seen as a major proponent of the ideology, particularly in the 1840s. He proposed that the English people were "essentially a Teutonic race, blood-kin to the Germans, Dutch, Scandinavians". Kingsley suggested there was a "strong Norse element in Teutonism and Anglo-Saxonism".

Mixing mythology and Christianity, he blended Protestantism as it was practised at the time with the Old Norse religion, saying that the Church of England was "wonderfully and mysteriously fitted for the souls of a free Norse-Saxon race". He believed the ancestors of Anglo-Saxons, Norse and Germanic peoples had physically fought beside the god Odin, and that the British monarchy was genetically descended from the god.

Dislike of the Irish
Kingsley has been accused of intensely antagonistic views of the Irish, whom he described in derogatory terms.

Visiting County Sligo in Ireland, he wrote a letter to his wife from Markree Castle in 1860: "I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw along that hundred miles of horrible country [Ireland]... [for] to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black, one would not see it so much, but their skins, except where tanned by exposure, are as white as ours."

Legacy
Charles Kingsley's novel Westward Ho! led to the founding of a village by the same name (the only place name in England with an exclamation mark) and inspired the construction of the Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway. A hotel in Westward Ho! was named after and opened by him. A hotel which was opened in 1897 in Bloomsbury, London, and named after Kingsley was founded by teetotallers, who admired Kingsley for his political views and his ideas on social reform. It still exists as The Kingsley by Thistle.

Kingsley School, a private school in Bideford, the town in which Westward Ho! is set, took its name from him after it was founded in 2009 as a merger of Edgehill College and Grenville College.

In 1905, the composer Cyril Rootham wrote a musical setting of Kingsley's poem Andromeda. This was performed at the Bristol Music Festival in 1908. Like Kingsley, Rootham had been educated at Bristol Grammar School.

Published works

 * Yeast, a novel (1848)
 * Saint's Tragedy (1848), a drama
 * Alton Locke, a novel (1849)
 * Twenty-five Village Sermons (1849)
 * Cheap Clothes and Nasty (1850)
 * Three Fishers (1851)
 * Phaeton, or Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers (1852)
 * Sermons on National Subjects (1st series, 1852)
 * Hypatia, a novel (1853)
 * Glaucus, or the Wonders of the Shore (1855)
 * Sermons on National Subjects (2nd series, 1854)
 * Alexandria and her Schools (1854)
 * Westward Ho!, a novel (1855)
 * Sermons for the Times (1855)
 * The Heroes, Greek fairy tales (1856)
 * Two Years Ago, a novel (1857)
 * Andromeda and other Poems (1858)
 * The Good News of God, sermons (1859)
 * Miscellanies (1859)
 * Limits of Exact Science applied to History (Inaugural lectures, 1860)
 * Town and Country Sermons (1861)
 * Sermons on the Pentateuch (1863)
 * The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby (1863)
 * The Roman and the Teuton (1864)
 * David and other Sermons (1866)
 * Hereward the Wake: "Last of the English", a novel (London: Macmillan, 1866)
 * The Ancient Régime (Lectures at the Royal Institution, 1867)
 * Water of Life and other Sermons (1867)
 * The Hermits (1869)
 * Madam How and Lady Why (1869)
 * At Last: a Christmas in the West Indies (1871)
 * Town Geology (1872)
 * Discipline and other Sermons (1872)
 * Prose Idylls (1873)
 * Plays and Puritans (1873)
 * Health and Education (1874)
 * Westminster Sermons (1874)
 * Lectures delivered in America (1875)
 * Charles Kingsley's American Notes: Letters From a Lecture Tour, 1874 (1958)
 * Earl Haladan's Daughter (1858)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Charles Kingsley


text:
Chattahoochee County, Georgia

Chattahoochee County, also known as Cusseta-Chattahoochee County, is a county located on the western border in central Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,565. The county seat is Cusseta, with which the county shares a consolidated city-county government. The city of Cusseta remains a geographically distinct municipality within Chattahoochee County. The county was created on February 13, 1854.

Chattahoochee County is included in the Columbus, GA-AL metropolitan statistical area.

History
This area was occupied by the historic Muscogee people (also known as the Creek) at the time of European encounter. They had a large confederacy in the Southeast. They were among the Five Civilized Tribes who were forcibly removed to Indian Territory in the 1830s during the administration of President Andrew Jackson. European Americans moved into their former areas, in some cases acquiring land through lotteries run by the state.

The Georgia General Assembly created Chattahoochee County on February 13, 1854, from portions of Muscogee and Marion counties. It is named for the Chattahoochee River that forms its western boundary. The county seat was named Cusseta to commemorate the historic Creek Indian town of that name that long existed nearby. In 2004–2005, the U.S. Census Bureau reported a 6.2% population decline, making this county at the top of those nationally with shrinking populations.

The original courthouse, built in 1854 by enslaved African Americans, is preserved at the tourist attraction of Westville in Columbus, Georgia.

Since 1918, most of the land in Chattahoochee County has been part of the Fort Moore military reservation.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 251 sqmi, of which 249 sqmi is land and 2.4 sqmi (1.0%) is water.

The vast majority of Chattahoochee County is located in the Middle Chattahoochee River-Walter F. George Lake subbasin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin). The very small southeastern corner of the county is located in the Kinchafoonee-Muckalee subbasin of the same larger ACF Basin. The county forms part of the West Georgia region.

Major highways

 * US 27.svg U.S. Route 27
 * US 280.svg U.S. Route 280
 * Georgia 1.svg State Route 1
 * Georgia 26.svg State Route 26
 * Georgia 355.svg State Route 355
 * Georgia 520.svg State Route 520

Adjacent counties

 * Muscogee County (north)
 * Talbot County (northeast)
 * Marion County (east)
 * Stewart County (south)
 * Russell County, Alabama (which is west of the border of Central Standard Time border except for Phenix City, Alabama, a part of the Columbus Metropolitan Area)

Cities

 * Cusseta

Former census-designated places

 * Fort Benning South (now part of Cusseta)

Unincorporated communities

 * Ida Vesper

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 9,565 people, 2,570 households, and 1,886 families residing in the county.

Education
The Chattahoochee County School District holds pre-school to grade twelve, and consists of one elementary school, a middle school, and a high school. The district has 85 full-time teachers and over 1000 students.
 * Chattahoochee County Education Center
 * Chattahoochee County Middle School
 * Chattahoochee County High School

All parts of the county except Fort Moore are zoned to county schools for all grades. Fort Moore children are zoned to Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools for grades K-8. However Fort Moore high school students attend the public high schools in the respective counties they are located in.

title: Chattahoochee County, Georgia


text:
Chatham County, Georgia

Chatham County is located in the U.S. state of Georgia, on the state's Atlantic coast. The county seat and largest city is Savannah. One of the original counties of Georgia, Chatham County was created February 5, 1777, and is named after William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham.

The U.S. Census Bureau's official 2020 population for Chatham County was 295,291 residents. This was an increase of 11.4% from the official 2010 population of 265,128 residents. Chatham is the sixth most populous county in Georgia, and the most populous Georgia county outside the Atlanta metropolitan area. Chatham is the core county of the Savannah metropolitan area.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 632 sqmi, of which 206 sqmi (32.6%) is covered by water.

Chatham County is the northernmost of Georgia's coastal counties on the Atlantic Ocean. It is bounded on the northeast by the Savannah River, and in the southwest bounded by the Ogeechee River.

The bulk of Chatham County, an area with a northern border in a line from Bloomingdale to Tybee Island, is located in the Ogeechee River Coastal subbasin of the Ogeechee River basin. The portion of the county north of that line is located in the lower Savannah River subbasin of the Savannah River basin, while the very southern fringes of the Chatham County are located in the lower Ogeechee River subbasin of the Ogeechee River basin.

Major highways

 * (Interstate 16)
 * (Interstate 95)
 * (Interstate 516)
 * (Decommissioned)
 * (unsigned designation for I-16)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-516)
 * (Savannah River Parkway)
 * (Decommissioned)
 * (unsigned designation for I-16)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-516)
 * (Savannah River Parkway)
 * (Decommissioned)
 * (unsigned designation for I-16)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-516)
 * (Savannah River Parkway)
 * (unsigned designation for I-516)
 * (Savannah River Parkway)

Adjacent counties

 * Jasper County, South Carolina – northeast
 * Bryan County – west/southwest
 * Liberty County - southeast
 * Effingham County – northwest

National protected areas

 * Fort Pulaski National Monument
 * Savannah National Wildlife Refuge (part)
 * Wassaw National Wildlife Refuge

Cities

 * Bloomingdale
 * Garden City
 * Pooler
 * Port Wentworth
 * Savannah (county seat)
 * Tybee Island

Towns

 * Thunderbolt
 * Vernonburg

Census-designated places

 * Dutch Island
 * Georgetown
 * Henderson
 * Isle of Hope
 * Montgomery
 * Skidaway Island
 * Talahi Island
 * Whitemarsh Island
 * Wilmington Island

Other unincorporated communities

 * Pin Point
 * Sandfly

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 295,291 people, 107,987 households, and 65,889 families residing in the county.

Education

Public schools are operated by Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools. The entire county is in the district.

Libraries
The Live Oak Public Libraries constitute a regional library system that provides services to three Georgia counties: Chatham, Effingham, and Liberty. The former name of the system, "Chatham Effingham Liberty Regional Library," described this collaboration. In 2002, the name was changed to Live Oak, which reflects the personality of the region, as well as the life and growth of its branches. At the beginning of the 20th century, city leaders in Savannah began to discuss the need for a public library. The history of libraries in Chatham County dates to 1903. According to Geraldine LeMay, former director of the Savannah Public Chatham-Effingham and Liberty Regional Library, the Georgia Historical Society and the city of Savannah worked out a plan that year to establish the Savannah Public Library. The idea was the brainchild of the Georgia Historical Society, which set up a planning committee to determine how the facilities of the society might best be useful to the city of Savannah. In a joint meeting of committee members from the society and the city of Savannah, a free public library was established that would prove to be of great value to the community. This library, however, did not serve citizens of color. <!-- should be own article The parties agreed to allow free use of the society's books, provide physical space for the library, and annually contribute $500 in financial support for the library. In turn, the city would contribute $3,000 in annual support. The library opened in June 1903, but did not fully serve the public until November. By 1909, the Georgia Historical Society was no longer able to meet its financial commitment, leaving the city to provide full financial support. The library remained at Hodgson Hall, the space provided by the Georgia Historical Society, until 1915. From its early beginnings, the library offered special services to the community, including a department for children (although no one under the age of 14 was permitted to borrow books). The physical space at Hodgson Hall became too small to accommodate a large reference department, so the library established only a small collection of reference materials.. In 1916, the Savannah Public Library opened to doors to a new facility on Bull Street within the Savannah Victorian Historic District. The new facility was made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation. As the library grew in popularity, it again found itself needing more space. The building was able to add additional space in 1936 thanks to a grant from the U.S. Works Progress Administration (WPA). With an ever-increasing population the library's board of directors decided to expand services beyond the Main Library. In 1916, two branch libraries were opened: the East Side Branch at Habersham and Congress Streets, and the Waters Avenue Branch. The services provided by these two branches were confined to children. To help further expand services, the Georgia Historical Society once again offered the library space at Hodgson Hall to be used as a branch library. This move was of mutual benefit to both the library and the Society. The library gained needed space for a downtown branch and the Society could organize and catalog materials. According to the history written by Lemay, some 5,027 volumes belonging to the Georgia Historical Society were cataloged by the library. This branch library continued operating until 1948, when it was sold to Armstrong Junior College (now Georgia Southern University-Armstrong Campus) to establish an academic library.

In 1924 a traveling book collection was instituted and placed in four public elementary schools; other schools were added when available materials and staff time allowed. In 1926, the Savannah Morning News donated space for a Downtown branch to primarily serve the business community. The Downtown branch experienced several changes in venues over the years until it was given a permanent home in the Gamble Building. The Gamble Building sits on Factors' Walk, on Bay Street next to Savannah's City Hall. With this move, the branch was renamed in honor of Ola Wyeth, the former president of the Georgia Library Association (1925).

In 1940 a bookmobile service was started to provide outreach to rural communities around Savannah. The Effingham County Library joined the Savannah Public Library in 1945 to form the Chatham–Effingham County Regional Library. In 1956, the library system was expanded to include Liberty County, resulting in the Chatham–Effingham–Liberty Regional Library (CEL).

When the United States Supreme Court declared de jure segregation illegal and unconstitutional, the library system experienced one of its greatest changes. As a result of this ruling, the "Library for the Colored Citizens of Savannah" was brought under the auspices of the Chatham-Effingham-Liberty Regional Library System (1963). This move made the library system a truly "free public library" serving all the citizens of Chatham, Effingham, and Liberty counties. -->

Government and infrastructure
The Coastal State Prison, a Georgia Department of Corrections state prison, is located in Savannah, near Garden City.

Unincorporated Chatham County is primarily served by the Chatham County Police Department. (CCPD ) and the Georgia State Patrol. The Chatham County Sheriff's Office is the enforcement arm of the county court system and operates the county jail. Except for the Town of Vernonburg, every incorporated town and city in Chatham County has its own police department.

Politics
Chatham County was one of the earliest counties in Georgia to turn Republican and shake off its Solid South roots. From 1952 to 2000, the county went Republican all but four times. Hubert Humphrey carried it by 95 votes in 1968. Jimmy Carter won a majority in both of his runs for president, and in 1996, Bill Clinton became the first non-Georgian Democrat to win a majority since Franklin Roosevelt.

The county has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 2004, when John Kerry carried it by fewer than 150 votes and by a plurality. It swung dramatically to support Barack Obama in 2008, making Obama only the second non-Georgian Democrat to win a majority of the county's vote since Franklin Roosevelt. Since then, Chatham has tended to vote substantially more for the Democratic Party at the presidential level than the state as a whole. In the last four presidential elections, the Democrats have recorded the biggest margins for non-Georgian Democrats since Roosevelt's landslides. This culminated in 2020, when Joe Biden took 58.6% of the vote, outdoing Carter's 57% in 1976 for the best performance in the county since Franklin Roosevelt in 1944. Since 2008, it has been one of the most Democratic urban counties in the state outside of the Atlanta area, and one of the few Democratic pockets in mostly heavily Republican South Georgia. It is primarily an urban county, especially in its principal city of Savannah.

title: Chatham County, Georgia


text:
Charlton County, Georgia

Charlton County is the southernmost county of the U.S. state of Georgia, located in the southeastern part of the state. As of the 2020 census, the population was 12,518. The county seat is Folkston.

History
Charlton County was created from a portion of Camden County, Georgia, by an act of the Georgia General Assembly on February 18, 1854. The original county seat was at Trader's Hill, until 1901. Additional lands from Ware County, Georgia, were added to Charlton's borders by an 1855 act of the General Assembly. In 1856, an additional legislative act redefined the Charlton–Camden borders again with each county ceding land to the other.

The county is named for Robert Milledge Charlton, a U. S. Senator from Georgia.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 782 sqmi, of which 774 sqmi is land and 8.8 sqmi (1.1%) is water. It is the fifth-largest county by area in Georgia. It is the southernmost county in Georgia. A large portion of the county lies within the Okefenokee Swamp and its federally protected areas.

The entire central and southern portion of Charlton County is located in the St. Marys sub-basin of the St. Marys-Satilla basin. The county's northeastern portion, north of Homeland, is located in the Satilla River sub-basin of the St. Marys-Satilla basin. The western portion of Charlton County is located in the Upper Suwannee River sub-basin of the larger Suwannee River basin. The country's southern region is level with the northernmost part of the central and eastern Panhandle of the Florida peninsula.

Major highways

 * US 1.svg U.S. Route 1
 * US 23.svg U.S. Route 23
 * US 301.svg U.S. Route 301
 * Georgia 4.svg State Route 4
 * Georgia 15.svg State Route 15
 * Georgia 23.svg State Route 23
 * Georgia 40.svg State Route 40
 * Georgia 40 Connector.svg State Route 40 Connector
 * Georgia 94.svg State Route 94
 * Georgia 121.svg State Route 121
 * Georgia 177.svg State Route 177
 * Georgia 185.svg State Route 185
 * Georgia 252.svg State Route 252

Adjacent counties

 * Brantley County - north
 * Nassau County, Florida - south and east
 * Camden County - east
 * Baker County, Florida - south
 * Ware County - north and west

National protected area

 * Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge (part)

Cities

 * Folkston
 * Homeland

Unincorporated communities

 * Moniac
 * Racepond
 * Saint George
 * Toledo
 * Trader's Hill
 * Uptonville

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 12,518 people, 3,675 households, and 2,685 families residing in the county.

title: Charlton County, Georgia


text:
Catoosa County, Georgia

Catoosa County is a county located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2020 census, the population was 67,872. The county seat is Ringgold. The county was created on December 5, 1853. The meaning of the Cherokee language name "Catoosa" is obscure. "Catoosa" may come from the Cherokee words gatusi ("hill", "small mountain" or "high place") or gatu'gitse ("new settlement place").

Catoosa County is part of the Chattanooga, TN–GA Metropolitan Statistical Area.

History
On March 14, 2002, due to a one-time sudden fog, about 125 vehicles crashed, causing a pileup in Interstate 75 that killed four people and injured 39.

On April 27, 2011, a devastating tornado touched down in the town of Ringgold, located in Catoosa County, leaving a path of severe destruction.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 162 sqmi, of which 162 sqmi is land and 0.3 sqmi (0.2%) is water. The entire county is located in the Middle Tennessee-Chickamauga sub-basin of the Middle Tennessee-Hiwassee basin.

Major highways

 * I-75.svg Interstate 75
 * US 27.svg U.S. Route 27
 * US 41.svg U.S. Route 41
 * US 76.svg U.S. Route 76
 * Georgia 1.svg State Route 1
 * Georgia 2.svg State Route 2
 * Georgia 3.svg State Route 3
 * Georgia 146.svg State Route 146
 * Georgia 151.svg State Route 151
 * Georgia 401.svg State Route 401 (unsigned designation for I-75)

Adjacent counties

 * Hamilton County, Tennessee (north)
 * Whitfield County (east)
 * Walker County (west)

National protected areas

 * Chattahoochee National Forest (part)
 * Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (part)

2020 census
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 67,872 people, 24,130 households, and 17,293 families residing in the county.

2016
the largest self-reported ancestry groups in Catoosa County, Georgia are:

2010 census
According to the 2010 United States Census, there were 63,942 people, 24,475 households, and 17,785 families living in the county. The population density was 394.3 PD/sqmi. There were 26,606 housing units at an average density of 164.1 /sqmi. The racial makeup of the county was 93.6% white, 2.2% black or African American, 1.2% Asian, 0.3% American Indian, 0.1% Pacific islander, 1.0% from other races, and 1.6% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 2.3% of the population.

Of the 24,475 households, 36.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.7% were married couples living together, 12.6% had a female householder with no husband present, 27.3% were non-families, and 23.1% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.59 and the average family size was 3.05. The median age was 38.3 years.

The median income for a household in the county was $46,544 and the median income for a family was $54,796. Males had a median income of $39,962 versus $31,505 for females. The per capita income for the county was $22,563. About 8.5% of families and 11.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.8% of those under age 18 and 9.0% of those age 65 or over.

2000 census
According to the census of 2000, there were 53,282 people, 20,425 households, and 15,400 families living in the county. The population density was 328 PD/sqmi. There were 21,794 housing units at an average density of 134 /mi2. The racial makeup of the county was 96.39% White, 1.26% Black or African American, 0.31% Native American, 0.71% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.39% from other races, and 0.93% from two or more races; 1.17% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 20,425 households, of which 35.40% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 60.60% were married couples living together, 11.00% had a female householder with no husband present, and 24.60% were non-families. 21.30% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.50% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.59 and the average family size was 3.00.

In the county, the population was spread out, with 25.80% under the age of 18, 8.10% from 18 to 24, 30.80% from 25 to 44, 23.40% from 45 to 64, and 11.90% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 93.80 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.20 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $39,998, and the median income for a family was $45,710. Males had a median income of $31,746 versus $23,790 for females. The per capita income for the county was $18,009. About 6.40% of families and 9.40% of the population were below the poverty line, including 12.50% of those under age 18 and 11.00% of those age 65 or over.

Elementary schools

 * Battlefield Elementary School
 * Battlefield Primary School
 * Boynton Elementary School
 * Cloud Springs Elementary School
 * Graysville Elementary School
 * Ringgold Elementary School
 * Ringgold Primary School
 * Tiger Creek Elementary School
 * West Side Elementary School
 * Woodstation Elementary School

Middle schools

 * Heritage Middle School
 * Lakeview Middle School
 * Ringgold Middle School

High schools

 * Heritage High School
 * Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School
 * Ringgold High School
 * Performance Learning Center

Cities

 * Fort Oglethorpe
 * Ringgold

Town

 * Tunnel Hill

Census-designated places

 * Indian Springs
 * Lakeview

Other unincorporated communities

 * Graysville
 * Woodstation

title: Catoosa County, Georgia


text:
Carroll County, Georgia

Carroll County is a county located in the northwestern part of the State of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, its population was 119,148. Its county seat is the city of Carrollton. Carroll County is included in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell metropolitan statistical area and is also adjacent to Alabama on its western border.

History
The lands of Lee, Muscogee, Troup, Coweta, and Carroll counties were ceded by the Creek people in the Treaty of Indian Springs (1825). This was a huge amount of land in Georgia and Alabama, the last remaining portion of the Creeks' territory, and it was ceded by William McIntosh, the chief of the Lower Creek and a member of the National Council. This cession violated the Law, the Code of 1818 that protected communal tribal land. The Creek National Council ordered the execution of McIntosh and other signatories to the treaty for what it considered treason.

McIntosh was killed at his plantation home, at what has been preserved as the McIntosh Reserve. Menawa and a force of 100-150 Law Defenders from Upper Town lands ceded in this treaty carried out the executions of two other men, including Samuel Hawkins, one of McIntosh's sons-in-law. Benjamin Hawkins Jr., another son-in-law, was also named for execution but he escaped, and soon moved to East Texas with his wife and family. Both of the Hawkins brothers were sons of Benjamin Hawkins, the longstanding US Indian Supervisor of the Creek.

The boundaries of Carroll County were created by the Georgia General Assembly on June 9, 1826, but the county was not named until December 14, 1826. It was named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton, at that time the last surviving signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, as was Carrollton, the county seat.

When the county was first organized, the legislature designated the county seat as Old Carrollton, Georgia, but in 1830 it was moved to Carrollton.

This county originally extended from the Chattahoochee River to the Alabama state line on the east and on the west, with its northern boundary at the Cherokee Nation, just north of present-day Interstate 20. As population increased, this land was divided into Carroll, Douglas, and Heard counties, and parts of Haralson and Troup counties. The portion that became Douglas County was once Campbell County which no longer exists (it was divided between Douglas and Fulton counties).

Because the county had few slaves compared to counties developed for cotton plantations, it was called the Free State of Carroll during the 1850s. Even before the cession of territory by the Cherokee in the late 1830s, some white settlers lived in the northern part of the county in the area of Villa Rica.

Carroll County was the site of Georgia's first Gold Rush.

For a time Carroll County was the home of Horace King (architect). King helped build Moore's Bridge over the Chattahoochee River at Whitesburg. Moores Bridge was burned by Union soldiers during the Civil War. During the American Civil War, the county provided the Bowdon Volunteers and the Carroll Boys, which were a part of Cobb's Legion.

On August 21, 1995, Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529 crashed in a field near Carrollton, Georgia. Nine of the 29 passengers and crew were killed in the crash.

In February 2008 several tornadoes hit Carroll County, destroying several homes and damaging many more. On May 11, 2008 (Mother's Day) some of the same areas were hit by more tornadoes. The Mother's Day tornadoes destroyed and damaged many homes and businesses.

On September 21, 2009, portions of Carroll County were flooded after eight days of heavy rainfall, resulting in multiple deaths. The flooding initially closed more than 60 highways and roads, and it destroyed a number of bridges. Early estimates of the damage totaled $22 million.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 504 sqmi, of which 499 sqmi is land and 4.8 sqmi (0.9%) is water.

The western two-thirds of Carroll County, in a line from Roopville northeast to Villa Rica, is located in the Upper Tallapoosa River sub-basin of the ACT River Basin (Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa River Basin), while the eastern third, east of that same line, is located in the Middle Chattahoochee River-Lake Harding sub-basin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin).

Adjacent counties

 * Paulding County – north
 * Douglas County – east
 * Fulton County – east
 * Coweta County – southeast
 * Heard County – south
 * Randolph County, Alabama – southwest (Central Time border)
 * Cleburne County, Alabama – west (Central Time border)
 * Haralson County – northwest

Communities

 * City of Carrollton (County Seat)
 * City of Villa Rica *
 * Fairfield (Unincorporated)
 * City of Temple
 * City of Bowdon
 * City of Mount Zion
 * Town of Whitesburg
 * Town of Roopville

* The eastern half of Villa Rica is in Douglas County

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 119,148 people, 42,798 households, and 30,346 families residing in the county.

Major roads
U.S. Route 27 Alternate
 * I-20.svg Interstate 20
 * US 27.svg U.S. Route 27
 * Alternate plate.svg
 * U.S. Route 27 Business
 * US 78.svg U.S. Route 78
 * Georgia 1.svg State Route 1
 * Georgia 1 Business.svg State Route 1 Business
 * Georgia 5.svg State Route 5
 * Georgia 8.svg State Route 8
 * Georgia 16.svg State Route 16
 * Georgia 61.svg State Route 61
 * Georgia 100.svg State Route 100
 * Georgia 101.svg State Route 101
 * Georgia 113.svg State Route 113
 * Georgia 166.svg State Route 166
 * State Route 166 Connector
 * Georgia 274.svg State Route 274
 * Georgia 402.svg State Route 402 (unsigned designation for I-20)

Pedestrians and cycling

 * Carrollton Greenbelt
 * UWG Nature Trails

Railroads
The Southern Railway ran several daily passenger trains, including the Kansas City-Florida Special, the Sunnyland and an Atlanta-Birmingham section of the Piedmont Limited, making full stops in Bremen. These trains made flag or signal stops in Villa Rica as well. The last trains made stops in 1967.

Sports

 * Georgia Storm FC - National Premier Soccer League - Carrollton - Formed in 2020 and competes in the Southeast Region of the NPSL. Home games are played at University of West Georgia soccer field.

Politics
Carroll County has voted Republican consistently since 1984. Unlike most counties in the Atlanta metropolitan area, Carroll County as a whole has trended right for more than a decade.The county voted for Donald Trump by 39 percentage points in 2020 and later voted for Governor Kemp by almost 48 percentage points in the 2022 midterms

title: Carroll County, Georgia


text:
Candler County, Georgia

Candler County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,981. The county seat is Metter. The county was founded in 1914 and named for Allen D. Candler, the 56th governor of Georgia.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 249 sqmi, of which 243 sqmi is land and 5.8 sqmi (2.3%) is water.

The majority of Candler County is located in the Canoochee River sub-basin of the Ogeechee River basin. The western edge of the county, west of State Route 57, is located in the Ohoopee River sub-basin of the Altamaha River basin.

Major highways

 * I-16.svg Interstate 16
 * Georgia 23.svg State Route 23
 * Georgia 46.svg State Route 46
 * Georgia 57.svg State Route 57
 * Georgia 121.svg State Route 121
 * Georgia 129.svg State Route 129
 * Georgia 404.svg State Route 404 (unsigned designation for I-16)

Adjacent counties

 * Bulloch County (east)
 * Evans County (southeast)
 * Tattnall County (south)
 * Emanuel County (northwest)

City

 * Metter (county seat)

Town

 * Pulaski

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 10,981 people, 4,013 households, and 2,775 families residing in the county.

title: Candler County, Georgia


text:
Camden County, Georgia

Camden County is a county located in the southeastern corner of the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2020 census, its population was 54,768. Its county seat is Woodbine, and the largest city is Kingsland. It is one of the original counties of Georgia, created February 5, 1777. It is the 11th-largest county in the state of Georgia by area, and the 41st-largest by population.

Camden County comprises the Kingsland, Georgia Micropolitan Statistical Area (μSA), formerly known as the St. Marys, Georgia μSA, which is included in the Jacksonville—Kingsland—Palatka, Florida–Georgia Combined Statistical Area.

Colonial period
The first recorded European to visit what is today Camden County was Captain Jean Ribault of France in 1562. Ribault was sent out by French Huguenots to find a suitable place for a settlement. Ribault named the rivers he saw the Seine and the Some, known today as the St. Marys and Satilla Rivers. Ribault described the area as, "Fairest, fruitfulest and pleasantest of all the world."

In 1565, Spain became alarmed by the French settlements and sent out a large force to take over and settle the area. During that time, the Spaniards attempted to convert the Native Americans to Catholicism. At least two missions operated on Cumberland Island, ministering to the Timucuan people, who had resided on the island for at least 4,000 years.

Competing British and Spanish claims to the territory between their respective colonies of South Carolina and Florida was a source of international tension, and the colony of Georgia was founded in 1733 in part to protect the British interests. The Spanish theoretically lost their claim to the territory in 1742 after the Battle of Bloody Marsh (on St. Simons Island). However, settlement south of the Altamaha River (what is now Glynn and Camden Counties) was discouraged by both the British and Spanish governments. One group of settlers led by Edmund Gray sparked Spanish military action after settling on the Satilla River in the 1750s near present-day Burnt Fort, and were subsequently disbanded by the Royal Governor John Reynolds.

General Oglethorpe was at Cumberland Island when Tomochichi gave the barrier island its name. Later, he erected a hunting lodge on Cumberland named Dungeness, which was the predecessor of the famous Greene and Carnegie Dungeness Mansions. He also founded Fort St. Andrews on the north end of Cumberland Island, as well as a strong battery, Fort Prince Williams, on the south end. Fort Prince Williams commanded the entrance to the St. Marys River but had become a ruin by the Revolutionary War.

In 1763, Spain, under a treaty of peace with Great Britain, ceded Florida to the British. After this, the boundaries of Georgia were extended from the Altamaha (now the southern boundary of McIntosh County) to the St. Marys River (the current southern boundary of Camden). In 1765, four parishes were laid out between the Altamaha and St. Marys Rivers. These were St. Davids, St. Patricks, St. James, and the parishes of St. Marys and St. Thomas.

Early American era
Largely due to security issues arising from proximity to powerful Indian groups and British Florida, Georgia was the last colony to join in the War for Independence in 1775. In the Georgia Constitution of 1777 St. Thomas and St. Marys Parishes were formed into Camden County, named for Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden in England, a supporter of American independence. Originally Camden County was larger and also included parts of present-day Ware, Brantley, and Charlton Counties, which were re-designated in the nineteenth century.

Also under the 1777 state constitution, Glynn County and Camden County had limited and restricted representation in the new patriotic Georgia government due to their extreme "state of alarm" throughout the war. Between 1776 and 1778 Camden County saw the construction of numerous forts, three failed American campaigns against the British at St. Augustine, and numerous depredations by raiders of various allegiance. One of the most notorious of these raiders was Daniel McGirth. A significant loyalist faction existed in Camden County, headed by the brothers of Royal Governor James Wright, Charles and German Wright. They built a fort on the St. Marys River in 1775 to protect their lands and chattel during the war after repeated attacks by patriot banditti. Wright's Fort became a rendezvous for a group of loyalists called the "Florida Rangers". Two skirmishes were fought by Loyalist and Continental forces over Wright's Fort, and both times American troops failed to rout the Loyalists from the area. Finally, retreating British soldiers burned it down in 1778. The Americans rebuilt it when they invaded East Florida, and then burned it down to prevent it falling into enemy hands. The archaeological site was rediscovered in 1975.

The primary economic enterprise of the county was rice planting, particularly along the Satilla River. Sea Island cotton was grown on Cumberland Island, and short-staple cotton was grown on the mainland along with sugar cane. Various forest products including turpentine and timber were produced, mainly for consumption in the naval industry and the West Indies. Camden County also served as a hub of backcountry trade with American settlers and various Indian groups, and as a shipyard and shipping center centered around the town of St. Marys. The land in Camden County was owned by fewer than 300 people throughout the colonial and antebellum eras. Most of the white population worked in trades or as tenant farmers, while nearly all black residents were slaves. Until the 1840s (and increasingly strict black codes), Camden County had a small population of free black workers, mainly involved in day labor or maritime industry.

Camden County was the site of many trading posts with the Native Americans, who by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries consisted mainly of people of the Creek Nation. From America's earliest years and even after Indian Removal in the 1830s, the county was a site of significant conflict between settlers and Indians, leading to a small series of local Indian wars, and displacement of both Indian and local American refugees. An important step towards establishing boundaries in the Early Federal period came with the Treaty of Colerain which was signed on June 29, 1796, on the St. Marys between United States agents and the Creeks.

Many men from Camden County volunteered to fight under John Houstoun McIntosh, a wealthy landowner in the region, during the Patriot War in Florida in 1811. These men would go on to help capture the town of Fernandina, Florida.

On January 15, 1815, British troops led by Sir George Cockburn landed on Cumberland Island. Their goal was to attack the fort at Point Peter. They quickly overwhelmed the small American forced and took Ft. Point Peter easily. After the skirmish, British soldiers occupied the county through February. They raided the town of St. Marys, as well as many plantations and smaller settlements. Although New Orleans was the last major battle of the war, the skirmish at Point Peter happened even later, almost a month after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed. The British occupation of Camden County led to the liberation of an estimated 1,485 slaves from Georgia and Florida.

Camden County was on an international border until the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819 between the United States and Spain, making the Florida provinces American territory.

Civil War and Reconstruction
At the beginning of the Civil War, the population was 5,482 of which 1,721 were white. During the war, many of the county's civilians moved farther inland, particularly to Centerville and Trader's Hill on the St. Marys River in Charlton County. The inhabitant's fears were realized when the town of St. Marys was attacked by United States Navy. At least one federal party to "carry off" slaves was met by armed resistance on White Oak Creek off the Satilla River.

Camden County organized four volunteer companies: the Camden Chasseurs, St. Marys Volunteers Guard, Camden Rifles, and Camden County Guards.

Camden County land fell under Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15. which dictated the distribution of parcels of land to freedmen. However, by 1868, Camden County's freedmen found themselves dispossessed of land they had lived and worked on since emancipation or earlier. Confiscated lands were returned to former landowners. During the first years of Reconstruction, Republican candidates and many local blacks were able to gain political victories. The first Democratic victory in the county after the war went to Ray Tompkins. This signaled a return to a white political majority and the end of the Reconstruction Era concurrent with the statewide Democratic victory in 1870.

Since the 1830s
Earlier plans for railways in the area dated back to the 1830s, but construction was never begun. In 1893, Florida Central and Peninsular Railroad built a Savannah-Jacksonville line through Camden County. In 1923 the county seat of Camden County was moved from St. Marys to Woodbine, a reflection of the shift from the water transportation to railways. In 1927, U.S. Route 17 was constructed through Woodbine and Kingsland.

From 1917 to 1937, a pogy plant producing oil for Procter & Gamble and fertilizer for the Southern Fertilizer and Chemical Company was one of the major economic activities of the area. The layoffs from the pogy plant found relief when the Gilman Paper Company came to the county in 1939. The company was sold to Durango Paper Co. in 1999, and went out of business in 2002, resulting in 900 workers losing their jobs.

In 1965, Thiokol Chemical launched a 13 ft-diameter, 3000000 lbf-thrust rocket from their chemical plant in the eastern part of the county. On February 3, 1971, a fire and explosion occurred at the plant, located 12 miles southeast of Woodbine. The industrial accident killed 29 workers and seriously injured 50 others.

During World War II, the Georgia State Guard and local Home Guard held bases on Cumberland Island. The island and surrounding waters were also patrolled by the United States Coast Guard. The U.S. Army began to acquire land south of Crooked River in 1954 to build a military ocean terminal to ship ammunition in case of a national emergency. In November 1976, the area of Kings Bay was selected for a submarine base. Soon afterward, the first Navy personnel arrived in the Kings Bay area and started preparations for the orderly transfer of property from the Army to the Navy. Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay not only occupies the former Army terminal land, but several thousand additional acres. Camden County's population grew enormously after the military took an interest in the area, and during the 1980s, was the fourth fastest growing county in the United States.

Cumberland Island National Seashore was established in 1970 to protect and preserve the natural and historic resources of the island. Crooked River State Park was established in 1985.

In 2009, the Camden County Sheriff's Office was ordered by the Justice Department to repay $662,000 of improperly spent funds seized from alleged criminals before it would be allowed to participate in the Justice Department's equitable sharing program. Items that were determined to have been purchased by the Camden County Sheriff's Department improperly included a Dodge Viper purchased for approximately $90,000 which the Sheriff's Office intended to use in anti-drug programs.

In 2012, the Camden County Joint Development Authority began considering developing a spaceport for both horizontal and vertical spacecraft operations. Options included moving the St. Marys' airport to the Atlantic coastal site which had previously been used for a rocket launch in 1965. In 2013, the authority contracted for an Environmental Impact Statement to be completed on 200 acre of authority-owned land, part of a larger 4200 acre site, in order to build a commercial launch site. , the county was investigating options to purchase 11000 acre of land from landowners who own the land formerly occupied by Thiokol Chemical and Bayer CropScience at Harrietts Bluff. If an agreement is reached with landowners, then another 18-month-long environmental impact process could begin on the larger parcel of land. Georgia state legislators would likely offer tax incentives for commercial development in the project. If development were to proceed, the earliest launch possible would have been in 2018, according to the 2014 projections.

In June 2015, the Camden board decided to formally advance the Spaceport Camden project by initiating an FAA Environmental Impact Assessment of the 4000+ acre facility.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 782 sqmi, of which 613 sqmi is land and 169 sqmi (21.6%) is water.

The bulk of Camden County's central and western area, from an east–west line running through Waverly in the north to a line running from Charlton County northeast to St. Andrew Sound, is located in the Satilla River sub-basin of the St. Marys-Satilla basin. The area north of Waverly, as well as from west of Kingsland east to the coast of Cumberland Island, is located in the Cumberland-St. Simons sub-basin of the St. Marys-Satilla River basin. Camden County's southern border area, in a line from Charlton County to St. Marys, is located in the St. Marys River sub-basin of the same St. Marys-Satilla basin.

The 1898 Georgia hurricane which made landfall on Cumberland Island in Camden County was the strongest hurricane to hit the state of Georgia within recorded history.

Major highways

 * (Interstate 95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)

Adjacent counties

 * Glynn County (north)
 * Nassau County, Florida (south)
 * Charlton County (west)
 * Brantley County (northwest)

National protected area

 * Cumberland Island National Seashore

Cities

 * Kingsland
 * St. Marys
 * Woodbine

Census-designated place

 * Kings Bay Base

Unincorporated communities

 * Dover Bluff
 * Hopewell
 * Spring Bluff
 * Waverly
 * White Oak
 * Bullhead Bluff

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 54,768 people, 19,338 households, and 14,380 families residing in the county. Among the 2020 population, its racial and ethnic makeup was 67.93% non-Hispanic white, 17.34% African American, 0.34% Native American, 1.54% Asian alone, 0.12% Pacific Islander American, 6.05% multiracial, and 6.68% Hispanic or Latino of any race.

Education
Camden is home to one comprehensive public high school (with a separate center for ninth graders), two middle schools, nine elementary schools and an alternative school. The system serves approximately 9,600 students. The school board is run by the following members:
 * Superintendent of Schools - Dr. Will Hardin
 * Assistant Superintendent - Dr. Jonathan Miller
 * Assistant Superintendent - Dr. Rebecca Gillette

Camden County High School is the single public high school in Camden County, offering a comprehensive curriculum (9–12) with a variety of classes for both College Preparatory and Career Technology Preparatory. The high school campus is one of the largest in the state of Georgia. It consists of a main building (10-12 building) as well as a ninth-grade center that holds two additional hallways, one gymnasium, one cafeteria, and one media center. The school has also recently constructed an additional building consisting of classrooms, conference rooms, and a large weight room. The school offers AP classes and joint enrollment with College of Coastal Georgia and the Valdosta State University Kings Bay Campus. The school is part of the Georgia High School Association and is classified as a "AAAAAAA" or "7A" school in Region 1. In 2003, the Wildcats won the Georgia 5A Football State Championship by defeating Valdosta High School. In 2008, the Wildcats won their second 5A State Football Championship by defeating Peachtree Ridge High School. In 2009, the Wildcats won their third 5A State Football Championship by defeating Northside (Warner Robins).

Notable people

 * James Seagrove: appointed Creek Indian Agent by the federal government and Superintendent of Creek Indian Affairs in 1789. Also a local trader associated with Trader's Hill and founder of St. Marys.
 * Duncan Lamont Clinch: After serving in the Seminole Wars, partially in Camden County, Clinch retired to planting near Jefferson on the Satilla River, and later began his political career.
 * Thomas Buckingham Smith: Born on Cumberland Island in 1810, Smith was a diplomat, antiquarian, and scholar. Notable Spanish translator and author of works on southern Native Americans.
 * John Floyd (October 3, 1769 – June 24, 1839): was an American politician and brigadier general in the First Brigade of Georgia Militia. He was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, as well as the US House of Representatives.
 * Charles Rinaldo Floyd (1797-1845): led the first U.S. campaign into the Okefenoke Swamp during the Seminole Wars. The Floyds were the largest planting family in Camden County.
 * Catherine Littlefield Greene: Wife of General Nathaniel Greene. Lived on Cumberland Island and built the county's largest antebellum home, Dungeness.
 * Travis Taylor: American former college and professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football league (NFL) for eight seasons during the 2000s. Taylor played college football for the University of Florida. A first-round pick in the 2000 NFL Draft, he played professionally for the Baltimore Ravens, Minnesota Vikings, Oakland Raiders and St. Louis Rams.
 * Stump Mitchell: American football coach and former professional player. He served as head football coach at Morgan State University from 1996 to 1998 and Southern University from 2010 to 2012, compiling an overall college football record of 14–42. Mitchell played collegiately at The Citadel and thereafter was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals of the National Football League (NFL). He was a running back and return specialist for the Cardinals from 1981 to 1989.
 * Ryan Seymour: American football offensive guard for the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the seventh round of the 2013 NFL Draft, and has also played for the San Francisco 49ers and Cleveland Browns. He played college football for Vanderbilt.
 * Alicia Patterson: Founder and editor of Newsday. While not from Camden County by birth, her remains are interred at her private hunting lodge in Kingsland.
 * Jarrad Davis: Former linebacker for the Camden County Wildcats, the University of Florida, and current linebacker for the Detroit Lions
 * Jason Spencer: former State Representative for district 180 in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2011 to 2018, is a longtime resident of the center of the district, Woodbine.
 * William J. Hardee, Confederate general

title: Camden County, Georgia


text:
Calhoun County, Georgia

Calhoun County is a rural county in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. Its county seat is Morgan and its population was 5,573 in 2020.

History
Calhoun County was named for John C. Calhoun, the seventh Vice President of the United States. It was created from parts of Early and Baker counties on February 20, 1854.

Rival political factions disagreed about whether the county seat should be in Concord, a community north of present-day Leary, or in Dickey, then known as Whitney. As a compromise, a spot halfway between Concord and Whitney was chosen for the county seat, and the town of Morgan was established there.

In 1923 the state legislature moved the county seat to Arlington as directed by a county referendum. This decision was reversed in 1929, restoring Morgan as the county seat.

Calhoun Memorial Hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital in Arlington originally founded as a Hill-Burton hospital, closed in 2013 after 62 years of operation.

In 2008, members of the Downtown Business Authority in Arlington founded the South Georgia Regional Information Technology Authority (SGRITA) with help from the state government to provide wireless broadband service to several counties in rural southwest Georgia. In 2017 SGRITA moved its office to Blakely in Early County.

Geography
The county seat is Morgan, where the historic Calhoun County Courthouse is located. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 284 sqmi, of which 280 sqmi is land and 3.2 sqmi (1.1%) is water.

The vast majority of Calhoun County is in the Ichawaynochaway Creek sub-basin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin). The county's western and southwestern corner, from Arlington running northwest to west of Edison, is in the Spring Creek sub-basin of the same larger ACF River Basin.

The United States Department of Agriculture has designated most of the county's land as prime farmland. Agricultural, forestry, and wildlife plantations line the county's eastern edge.

Adjacent counties

 * Terrell County (northeast)
 * Dougherty County (east)
 * Baker County (southeast)
 * Early County (southwest)
 * Clay County (west)
 * Randolph County (northwest)

Cities

 * Arlington
 * Edison
 * Leary
 * Morgan

Unincorporated communities

 * Dickey
 * Williamsburg

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 5,573 people, 1,736 households, and 1,152 families residing in the county. Of these people, 4.0% were under 5 years old, 16.9% were under 18, and 16.6% were 65 or over. The population was 39.3% female. The foreign-born population was 4.1% of the total. Of residents aged 5 or older, 7.7% spoke a language other than English at home.

There were 1,736 households. The average household size was 2.56. The county had 2,406 housing units, of which 65.6% were owner-occupied.

Economy
Many farms in Calhoun County grow corn, oats, sorghum, and wheat. Calhoun State Prison in Morgan is a major employer. Calhoun Nursing Home, a 60-bed long-term care facility in Edison, is now operated by Miller County.

Education
The Calhoun County School District has an elementary school and a middle-high school all in Edison. The district has about 530 students.

Pataula Charter Academy opened in 2010 in Edison as a tuition-free public charter school serving several counties in southwest Georgia. It has about 609 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

The Calhoun County Library in Edison is part of the Kinchafoonee Regional Library System.

Government
Calhoun County has a council-manager government with five commissioners elected by district.

Politics
Calhoun County is staunchly Democratic in US presidential elections. The last Republican candidate to win the county was Richard Nixon in 1972.

Major highways

 * Georgia 37.svg State Route 37
 * Georgia 41.svg State Route 41
 * Georgia 45.svg State Route 45
 * Georgia 55.svg State Route 55
 * Georgia 62.svg State Route 62
 * Georgia 216.svg State Route 216
 * Georgia 234.svg State Route 234

title: Calhoun County, Georgia


text:
Butts County, Georgia

Butts County is a county located in the central part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,434, up from 23,655 in 2010. The county seat is Jackson. The county was created on December 24, 1825.

Butts County is included in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell MSA. In 2010, the center of population of Georgia was located in the northeastern portion of the county.

History
Butts County was formed on December 24, 1825, as the sixty-fourth county in Georgia from portions of Henry County and Monroe County. It was named by the Georgia General Assembly in honor of Samuel Butts, an officer who was killed in the Creek War in 1814. A year later, Jackson was created as the first city in the new county and became the county seat. Other towns followed, including Indian Springs (1837); Flovilla (1883); Jenkinsburg (1889); and Pepperton (1897). Indian Springs later disincorporated and Pepperton was merged with Jackson in 1966, leaving just three incorporated cities in Butts County. In recent years, Indian Springs has again become a tourist destination including many historic sites, shops, eating establishment and the famous Indian Springs Hotel as its centerpiece.

Much of Butts County and its cities were destroyed by the army of General William T. Sherman in its March to the Sea during the American Civil War. Butts County struggled for decades afterwards to become economically stable again. The arrival of the first railroad train on May 5, 1882, started the resurgence and growth followed. In 1898, caught up in the post-reconstruction fervor that had infected most Georgia counties, Butts County erected a monumental courthouse designed by Bruce & Morgan. This building was used as a courthouse until 2019; following renovations, it is now a museum and visitor's center. The construction of the Lloyd Shoals dam in 1910 created Jackson Lake, a recreational lake located primarily in Butts County.

Progress milestones in Butts County include the first telephones in 1884; first waterworks in 1905; electric lights on February 19, 1907; and traffic lights in 1926.

In 2007, Butts County, along with the city of Flovilla were both designated as Georgia Signature Communities by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. This prestigious designation was given to a total of 12 communities in Georgia that year.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 188 sqmi, of which 184 sqmi is land and 3.6 sqmi (1.9%) is water. The entirety of Butts County is located in the Upper Ocmulgee River sub-basin of the Altamaha River basin.

Major highways

 * I-75.svg Interstate 75
 * US 23.svg U.S. Route 23
 * Georgia 16.svg State Route 16
 * Georgia 36.svg State Route 36
 * Georgia 42.svg State Route 42
 * Georgia 87.svg State Route 87
 * Georgia 401.svg State Route 401 (unsigned designation for I-75)

Adjacent counties

 * Newton County (north)
 * Jasper County (east)
 * Monroe County (south)
 * Lamar County (southwest)
 * Spalding County (west)
 * Henry County (northwest)

Cities

 * Flovilla
 * Jackson
 * Jenkinsburg

Unincorporated communities

 * Stark
 * Worthville

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 25,434 people, 8,279 households, and 5,823 families residing in the county.

Media
Butts County has one radio station: WJGA FM 92.1 and one local newspaper, the Jackson Progress-Argus. The county has gained attention in recent years as being a frequent backdrop for a number of movies and television shows. Most recently, the Netflix series Stranger Things made the Butts County city of Jackson, Georgia the backdrop of the show's fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, turning the downtown area into a 1980s Indiana small town. In addition to the many buildings of the downtown that are visible in various scenes, the exterior of the Butts County Courthouse is featured, standing in for the Hawkins library.

The fact that Butts County serves as the filming location for key events in the show has already led fans there after just two seasons. Other shows which have filmed in the area include The Originals, a television show, and a recent remake of Endless Love by Universal Studios.

County government
Butts County is governed by a Board of Commissioners composed of one commissioner from each of the county's five electoral districts. The commission members serve four year, staggered terms. The Board is presided over by the chairman, elected annually from the members of the commission to chair the meetings of the Board. The Board employs a County Administrator, Deputy County Administrator, County Clerk and nine department managers to oversee the daily affairs of the government.

There are four Constitutional Officers and three Elected Officials who are elected at-large by the voters of the county. The Constitutional Officers include the Sheriff; Tax Commissioner; Probate Judge and Clerk of the Superior Court. Elected officials include the Magistrate Judge; Coroner and County Surveyor. Other services are provided by departments headed by appointees of the Board of Commissioners.

In 2008, a movement began to create an elected, at-large chairman position to serve as presiding officer over the Board of Commissioners. This movement lost ground in 2009 and has not been revisited.

State representation
The Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison of the Georgia Department of Corrections is a maximum security prison in unincorporated Butts County. It is home to Georgia's death row for men and Georgia's execution facility. The prison is also home to maximum security general population (non-death row).

Education
All parts of the county are in the Butts County School District.

title: Butts County, Georgia


text:
Bryan County, Georgia

Bryan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 44,738. The county seat is Pembroke.

Bryan County is part of the Savannah, GA metropolitan statistical area.

The Bryan County Courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

History
Bryan County was created on December 19, 1793, named after Jonathan Bryan (1708–1788), an American Revolutionary War partisan.

South Bryan County is home to the earthen Civil War installation Fort McAllister (now Fort McAllister Historic Park) which Gen. William Sherman captured on his March to the Sea.

The colonial town of Hardwick, laid out in 1755, served as the initial county seat. In 1797, the Georgia General Assembly moved the county seat to Cross Roads near modern Richmond Hil. On November 18, 1814, the county seat was moved to Mansford on the Canoochee River. In 1860, the seat was known as Eden. By the 1880s the county seat was known as Bryan. By 1895 it was in Clyde, which may have been the same location formerly known as Eden and Mansford. Clyde served as the seat to 1935; in 1937 Pembroke took on that role. The only remaining sign of Clyde is a cemetery on the Fort Stewart military reservation.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 454 sqmi, of which 436 sqmi is land and 18 sqmi (4.1%) is water.

A triangular area in the northeast of Bryan County, from northwest of Pembroke to north of Richmond Hill, is located in the Lower Ogeechee River sub-basin of the Ogeechee River basin, as is the northern half of the remaining area in the county south of Richmond Hill. The northwestern portion of the county, from east of Daisy to Richmond Hill, is located in the Canoochee River sub-basin of the Ogeechee River basin. The rest of Bryan County is located in the Ogeechee Coastal sub-basin of the same Ogeechee River basin.

Bryan County is unique in that it is totally divided by the military installation at Ft. Stewart. Pembroke is in more rural north Bryan, while Richmond Hill in south Bryan County is a suburb of Savannah. To travel between the two on public roads, it is necessary to leave the county.

Major highways

 * (Interstate 16)
 * (Interstate 95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-16)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-16)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-16)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-16)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-16)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-16)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)
 * (unsigned designation for I-16)
 * (unsigned designation for I-95)

Adjacent counties

 * Effingham County, Georgia - north
 * Chatham County, Georgia - northeast
 * Liberty County, Georgia - south/southwest
 * Evans County, Georgia - west
 * Bulloch County, Georgia - northwest

Cities

 * Pembroke
 * Richmond Hill (Biggest City)

Unincorporated communities

 * Black Creek
 * Blitchton
 * Ellabell
 * Keller
 * Lanier

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 44,738 people, 13,048 households, and 10,140 families residing in the county.

Education
Bryan County School District is the designated school district for grades K-12 for the county, except parts in Fort Stewart. Fort Stewart has the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) as its local school district, for the elementary level. Students at the secondary level on Fort Stewart attend public schools operated by county school districts.

Notable people

 * Gregg Allman, musician, Allman Brothers Band
 * Mattie Belle Davis, first woman judge of Metropolitan Court of Dade County, Florida
 * Justin Smiley, pro football player, All-American at University of Alabama
 * John Smoltz, MLB pitcher, owned a summer home here while playing for the Atlanta Braves

title: Bryan County, Georgia