Concord Methodist

Putnam County
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Org 1810
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Photography by Scott Farrar

Concord Methodist is the oldest Methodist church west of the Oconee River and, in addition to being the oldest Methodist church in the county, was built on the oldest road in the county – the stagecoach road that ran from Milledgeville to Greensboro and Athens. There have been three structures built on the site, the first being a log cabin built by Thomas Johnston and William Pritchard in the fall of 1810 on one and one quarter acres of land donated by John Robertson. The deed stipulated that members of the church were were granted ‘free and direct pass way of ten feet wide from the said lot of land to the spring that John Wynne used and free privilege of drinking water forever‘. It was originally named Victory but was later changed to Concord. This first cabin was a crude one with no glass in the windows, a dirt floor and a fieldstone fireplace at one end. Pews were split logs with legs inserted for the proper height. This first log church was also used as a school for many years.

At this point we think it is appropriate to re-visit some of the earliest history of Putnam county in order to appreciate what it was like at this point in time to be on the edge of the frontier in the Georgia back country. From a George Gillman Smith history published in 1901, ‘Putnam was laid off from Baldwin in 1807. It was named in honor of the brave old general, and its county site for General Eaton, who had distinguished himself in the war with Tripoli. It had been on the eastern border of the Creek Nation for over twenty-five years. Hancock, which was originally Greene, had been settled since 1785, and was just across the river, and while the Whites had made no permanent settlements in the Nation on the west side of the river, many of them had their cattle ranches, and perhaps not a few had opened farms in the unceded country before the purchase was made in 1803. When the land was distributed by lottery the population in the eastern counties was already considerable, and especially on the good lands in Hancock there were thick settlements. As soon as the new purchase was opened the restless people of the counties near by pressed into it. Other immigrants joined them, many of them from Virginia and a larger number from the eastern counties of the State. None of these new counties, of which Putnam was one, could be said to have had any first settlers. They came in droves, and those mentioned are a few of many. These first people were mainly Georgians, the land being given away to Georgians by lottery. The lots were two hundred and two and one half acres in size, and when Putnam was first settled it was dotted all over with small farms’.

Mr. Smith also tells of the prosperity in the county from its inception into the mid 1850’s. ‘After the war of 1812, and the wonderful impetus given to cotton production, the people of Putnam increased their wealth very rapidly. Lands were fresh and rich, cotton was high, negroes were comparatively cheap and increased rapidly, and those who settled with a few slaves in the County in 1803 found themselves the owners of a hundred by 1830. There was little elegance but much solid comfort in the county until about 1845, when a number of handsome homes were erected on the plantations or in Eatonton. These mansions, with generally eight large rooms twenty feet square, with broad galleries and wide halls, were handsomely furnished, and the hospitality dispensed was generous. There were fine carriage horses, coachmen, footmen, maid servants and men servants, and there was nowhere a more elegant and luxurious life than was found in many of the families of Putnam.’ The Civil War will soon bring this idyllic lifestyle to an abrupt end. But the little church in the country not only survived, it continued to prosper and to serve the community for almost 200 years. Thanks to the members of Concord for their stewardship of this historic treasure.

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