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Other Information:
The 1850 act creating Clinch County named a five-member commission
with responsibility for selecting the county seat and erecting
a courthouse built (Ga. Laws 1849-50, p. 126). Until the courthouse
was built, the act directed that elections and superior and inferior
court sessions be held in the house of Jonathan Knight. The first
courthouse, built in 1852, burned in 1856. A new courthouse built
in 1859 burned in 1867. The present courthouse was completed
in 1896. In 1936, the WPA financed a major rehabilitation of
the courthouse as well as construction of an addition to the
structure.
County Courthouse Historical
Marker: Click
here
County History:
Clinch County was created on Feb. 14, 1850 by an act of the General
Assembly (Ga. Laws 1849-50, p. 126). Georgia's 95th county was
created from portions of Lowndes and Ware counties with the following
boundaries:
. . . Commencing at the mouth of Cane Creek, where it empties
into the Okefenokee Swamp, thence along said Creek to the ford
at Daniel Lane's, thence a direct line to the mouth of Reedy
Creek where it empties into the Saltillo river near John B.
Walls, then the river to be the line up to the county line,
thence the county line to the Allapaha river, thence the river
to be the line to the Florida line, to the Okefenokee Swamp;
the territory thus included shall form a new county, to be
called the county of Clinch. (Ga. Laws 1849-50, p. 126)
The county was named for Duncan
L. Clinch (1784-1849), a former U.S. Army general and Georgia
congressman who had died three months earlier .
Portions of Clinch County were used to create the following
counties: Coffee (1854), Echols (1858), Atkinson (1918), and
Lanier (1920).
County Seat:
The 1850 act creating Clinch County named Elijah Mattox, Simon
W. Nichol, Timothy Kirkland, Benjamin Sumon, and John J. Johnson
as commissioners to select a county seat (which was to be "as
near the center of said county as is convenient or practicable")
and provide for construction of a courthouse. The legislation
further directed that the county seat be named Polk (in honor
of Pres. James Polk). However, on Jan. 15, 1852, the General
Assembly changed the name of Polk to Magnolia (Ga. Laws 1851-52,
p. 455). Magnolia, presumably named for the magnolia trees found
in the area, was incorporated as a town by an act of Feb. 20,
1854 (Ga. Laws 1853-54, p. 257). The Atlantic and Gulf Railroad
was built through Clinch County in 1859. One of the railroad's
depots -- Station Number 11 -- was built near the residence of
Dr. John Homer Mattox, who settled there in 1853. In 1860, 275
citizens of Clinch County signed a petition requesting that the
county seat be moved from Magnolia to Station Number 11. As a
result, the legislature on Dec. 12, 1860 passed an act authorizing
the Clinch County inferior court to move the county seat to Station
Number 11. Subsequently, the community that developed around
the railroad station came to be known as Homerville, based on
the middle name of the Dr. John Homer Mattox. On Feb. 15, 1869,
the legislature incorporated Homerville (Ga. Laws 1869, p. 80).
Maps
Size of County (Total
Area): 824.2 square miles
County Rank in Total
Area: 3rd out of 159
Population:
Clinch County
City of Homerville
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