http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/met.../07walton.html
(I grew up in the 2nd Walton County)
State's first Walton County caused ruckus
By CAMERON McWHIRTER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
BREVARD, N.C. -- In a musty basement storage room of this mountain town's community meeting hall, an old surveyor's marker leans up against a dank wall behind boxes of rusting tools.
The granite stone, about 3 feet tall and 1 foot thick, bears the enigmatic marking "1797 PL" and has the distinction of being one of the few remaining artifacts from Georgia's first war between the states.
Wednesday marks the 200th anniversary of the Georgia Legislature's creation of its first -- but not its last -- Walton County, laying claim to a strip of land in the Blue Ridge Mountains that today forms much of North Carolina's Transylvania County. It was the opening salvo in a decade-long struggle between the two states that -- depending on which murky historical account you read -- left from one to 14 people dead.
Thanks to lousy surveying work, this whole bucolic mountain region -- now home to ever increasing hordes of Northern transplants -- once was part of Georgia. Or at least the people living here thought they were in Georgia.
"They had a big row," said Elizabeth Rahn, a native North Carolinian who moved to the area and now volunteers for the Transylvania County Historical Society. "When I moved over here to this county, some older people would talk about a war, the Walton War, and I would say, 'What are you talking about? The Walton War?' "
A state historic marker in a small park south of Brevard commemorates the conflict.
Rae Miller, 84, who lives nearby and knows a lot of old stories from the area, said she had never heard about the Walton War. "I've not ever really heard of it and I've lived here for most of my life," she said. "I wish I knowed more about it. . . . All I know is what's on the sign down there."
Aside from the granite stone, marked "PL" because it marked the line of a surveyor named Pickens, little survives from the Walton War. Amateur archaeologists have found what might have been fortifications. Few documents exist.
And though it's called a "war," one historian says it was at most a series of messy, short donnybrooks. Another calls it a solitary brawl that was later blown out of proportion. "The extent of the actual combat is uncertain," said Cal Carpenter, author of "The Walton War and Tales of the Great Smoky Mountains." "Compared to these days, it might be more called a skirmish."
The interstate fracas started shortly after the United States achieved independence and Congress ceded some mountain land to Georgia. But what exactly Georgia owned was not clear. At the close of the 18th century, surveyors sent out from Georgia delineated the area with stone markers.
But "in those days, the way they determined the line, with sextants reading the sun," Carpenter said, "it was pretty easy to make errors."
The surveyors got it wrong, placing the 35th parallel -- Georgia and North Carolina's true border -- about 12 miles north of where it actually lies. North Carolina objected.
To assert its claim, Georgia set up Walton County, named for Declaration of Independence signer George Walton, in the area around the French Broad River. Georgia settlers moved in and set up a government.
North Carolina sent in its own settlers. Fighting broke out.
Overhyped history?
The actual "war" appears to have taken place in December 1804.
Carpenter, 82, a former features editor of The Transylvania Times and retired Air Force colonel, said two main battles occurred in the Walton War, but that little was known about exactly what happened in each fight.
The first was at a branch of McGaha Creek just north of where it runs into the French Broad River. Carpenter said one to 14 people were killed and about 25 Georgians were taken prisoner. Later a smaller battle was fought on a hill near what today is Selica, N.C. Georgians lost that shootout, too, and the fighting stopped.
Carpenter said some excavations in these areas had uncovered what appear to be crude fortifications. "There could have been more of a fight than even I indicated," he said.
But Martin Reidinger, an Asheville attorney who grew up in Brevard and wrote his University of North Carolina undergraduate thesis on the Walton War, said documentary evidence that he had found did not support the idea of a war.
"The lore tends to outshine the facts," said Reidinger, 45, who said he still got calls about once a year from historians and genealogists interested in the Walton War.
Reidinger's research shows that the "battles" only amounted to groups of angry Georgia settlers attacking North Carolina constables. In December 1804, a group of angry settlers gathered near the McGaha Creek branch, Reidinger said. The area is just south of what is now downtown Brevard. There, by the water, they got into an argument with a constable named John Havner. A man named Samuel McAdams swung his musket at Havner, hitting him on the head.
"He didn't shoot him. He bopped him over the head with his gun," Reidinger said. "He must of cracked his skull and killed him. . . . Through the years, that became known as the Battle of Wilson Bridge."
Georgians vanish
At the Battle of Selica Hill, another constable was beaten.
After Havner died, North Carolina called out the militia, which arrested men who were at the creek that day, including McAdams. They all were taken to jail in Morganton, about 80 miles away. McAdams was charged with murder. Somehow all the men managed to escape before they could face trial. They disappeared. Reidinger combed through old records, newspapers and historical accounts to find out what happened to them.
"I particularly tried to track down this Samuel McAdams because he was charged with murder, and I could find no trace of him whatsoever anywhere in the United States," Reidinger said. "Apparently he spent the rest of his life running from the law."
In 1807, Congress agreed to sponsor another boundary survey. But when the results came down in North Carolina's favor, Georgia refused to accept the outcome.
Around 1808, North Carolina set up Haygood County in the area. For a while, the North Carolina and Georgia governments worked in tandem to govern the area: two sets of courts, two sets of tax collectors, two sets of sheriffs.
In 1811, Georgia hired a well-known surveyor of disputed boundaries to check the border again. His findings supported North Carolina's claim.
"That's sort of when Georgia's claim fizzled out," Reidinger said.
North Carolina's Legislature declared the line "fully established, ratified and confirmed forever." It later reorganized its counties and the region became Transylvania County.
Georgia dissolved Walton County in 1813. On Dec. 15, 1818, Georgia created the current Walton County, also named for George Walton, between Atlanta and Athens. During the Civil War, Georgia passed a resolution approving the existing borders with North Carolina.
Still, two centuries later, Georgia has yet to formally admit that it was wrong.
(I added the bold, lol.)
And your point is??? 
Georgia's 1st Civil War
Linear Mode
