Historic Sites in Wilcox County

The history of Wilcox County

Wilcox County was created in 1857 from parts of Dooly, Irwin and Pulaski counties, and historians disagree over whether its name honors General Mark Wilcox, an Indian Wars soldier who later served in the General Assembly, or his father, Captain John Wilcox. The Spanish expedition of Hernando de Soto is believed to have reached the Ocmulgee River in this area around 1540. Muscogee (Creek) people lived here until treaties in the first decades of the 1800s took their land, and in 1818 a fight known as the Battle of Breakfast Branch took place south of present-day Abbeville. White settlers turned from subsistence farming to cattle and then cash crops such as cotton. Abbeville, the county seat, was laid out in 1858 on sixty acres donated by David Fitzgerald and incorporated in 1883, and its 1903 brick courthouse is still in use. New Hope Primitive Baptist Church, founded in 1830, is the county's oldest church. Late on May 8, 1865, Confederate president Jefferson Davis passed through Abbeville with his family while fleeing Union cavalry, who captured him near Irwinville two days later. Railroads gave rise to Rochelle, Pineview and Pitts around the turn of the twentieth century. Agriculture and timber remain the foundation of the economy, and Abbeville celebrates its wild hog heritage with the annual Ocmulgee Wild Hog Festival.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiahistory.com