Historic Sites in Newton County

The history of Newton County

Newton County was created on December 24, 1821, from parts of Henry, Jasper and Walton counties. It honors Sergeant John Newton, a Revolutionary War soldier remembered as the companion of Sergeant William Jasper, namesake of neighboring Jasper County. State law required the county seat to sit near the center of the county, and in 1822 the site became Covington, originally called Newtonsboro and renamed for General Leonard Covington, a hero of the War of 1812. In 1836 Emory College was chartered as a Methodist school, and the town of Oxford, incorporated in 1839, grew up to serve it; the original campus continues today as Oxford College of Emory University. A railroad organized in 1836 to link Madison with the Chattahoochee River crossed the county and still carries heavy freight traffic. Porterdale began in the 1820s around a foundry and later became a textile mill town whose mill operated until the late twentieth century. In 1864 soldiers of General William T. Sherman's army marched through Covington and Oxford on the way to Savannah. Early in the twentieth century, county school commissioner G. C. Adams set up one of Georgia's first school transportation systems and organized the Newton County Boys Corn Club, credited as the first 4-H club.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiahistory.com