History of Hart County

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From A PORTRAYAL OF NANCY HART, Compiled and Told by Ruby Nell Heaton Bannister, Edited By Wassie Vickery, 1985, Published by The Citizens and Southern National Bank Hartwell, Georgia 30643, Printed by The Sun Press.

The “Ceded Lands”, comprising now the counties of Elbert, Warren, Oglethorpe, Lincoln, Wilkes, Hart and parts of Greene and Taliaferro and Madison lands were ceded by the Cherokee and Creek Indians at Augusta, Georgia, June 1, 1773 to King George III, in consideration of some $200,000.

Four years later in 1777, Wilkes was created by an act of the General Assembly and was composed of all the “Ceded Lands”, Elbert County was created from Wilkes in 1790; Franklin County was created from Wilkes in 1794; Hart County was created from Franklin and Elbert in 1853.

The Georgia Review, Fall 1954, Volume VIII, Number three, records that L.H.O. Martin and E.L. Rucker, representatives from Elbert County, sponsored in the Georgia legislature a bill to create a new county “to be named Hart, in honor of the dauntless Nancy of revolutionary memory. The county seat to be named Nancyville”.

William B. White, the senator from Elbert County, also proposed “the name of ‘Hart’, after the celebrated heroine of the Revolution.”

Dr. J. J. Singleton of Lumpkin County thought that “the whole name of ‘Nancy Hart’ should be used,” but upon a division of the senate being taken it was lost, and the name was reduced to Hart. But Senator White announced that he would suggest to the Inferior Court of the new county that is name the county seat Nancyville.

A correspondent of the Savannah Morning News said that it was called Hart County “to perpetuate the memory of that ‘Honey of a patriot’ mentioned in George White’s Statistics, under the name of Nancy Hart, and a fit tribute for such a brave hearted woman.”

Bibliography for this book, for further information on Georgia and Hart County;

Anderson, Mary Savage, Elfrida de Renne Barrow, Elizabeth Mackay Screven, Martha Gallaudet Waring, GEORGIA A PAGEANT OF YEARS, Virginia: Garrett & Massie, Inc., 9133.

Baker, John William, HISTORY OF HART COUNTY, Georgia: Foote & Davis, 1933

Clyne, Patricia Edwards, PATRIOTS IN PETTICOATS, New York: Dodd, Mead, & Company, 1976

Copeland, Edna Arnold, NANCY HART THE WAR WOMAN. Georgia: Published by the author, 1950.

Killion, Ronald G., and Charles T. Waller. GEORGIA AND THE REVOLUTION. Georgia: Cherokee Publishing Company, 1975.

McCullar, Bernice. THIS IS YOUR GEORGIA. Alabama: Viewpoint Publications, Inc. 1972.

Wilcox, Herbert. GEORGIA SCRIBE. Georgia: Cherokee publishing Company, 1974.

Coulter, E. Merton. THE GEORGIA REVIEW. Vol. VIII, No. 3-Fall 1954; Vol. VIII, No. 4-Winter 1954.