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Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Irwin County, Georgia.
Official Website
The county was created on December 15, 1818. It was named for Governor Jared Irwin. Ocilla is home to the annual Georgia Sweet Potato Festival which is currently held on the last Saturday in October. In the last years of the American Civil War, Irwin County gained the nickname of the Republic of Irwin due to the Unionism of many of its residents.
The Capture of Jefferson Davis
Irwinville became the site of the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Davis was on his way from the capital of the Confederacy at Richmond, Virginia to board a ship with his family and flee to safety in England, Davis stopped at a hotel in Irwinville owned by Doctor G.E. White on the evening of May 9, 1865. There he conversed and socialized with the locals and no one had suspected that they were in the presence of a man of such esteem. Davis and his family moved to an encampment beside a nearby creek bed only a couple of miles from the hotel after they were done talking with the citizens of Irwinville and sometime in the early morning of May 10, the encampment was alarmed by the sound of gunfire. Davis tried to escape towards the creek wearing an overcoat and his wife had tied her scarf around his shoulders, but members of the First Wisconsin and Fourth Michigan Cavalry Regiments captured him. He was taken to Fortress Monroe, Virginia and held for two years.[10] The location is now the Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site.
Adjacent Counties
Communities
- Irwinville
- Mystic
- Ocilla (County Seat)
- Waterloo
- Wray
Links
Irwin County Marriage Certificates - (1832-1959)
