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Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Liberty County, Georgia.
Official Website
Liberty County is part of the Hinesville, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Savannah-Hinesville-Statesboro, Georgia Combined Statistical Area. Liberty County was established in 1777. It is named for the American ideal of liberty. Sunbury was first designated the county seat in 1784. In 1797, the seat was transferred to Riceboro, and in 1837 it was transferred again to Hinesville.[4]
Adjacent Counties
Cities & Communities
- Allenhurst
- Flemington
- Fort Stewart
- Fleming
- Flemington
- Gumbranch
- Hinesville
- Limerick
- McIntosh
- Midway
- Riceboro
- Seabrook
- Sunbury
- Walthourville
1922 lynching
Main article: Lynching of James Harvey and Joe Jordan
On July 1, 1922, James Harvey and Joe Jordan, two African American men, were lynched by a mob of about 50 people in Liberty County during an escort by police from Jesup, Georgia to a jail in Savannah, Georgia. The event drew condemnation from both the local black community and from several prominent white citizens, with the preacher at Midway Methodist Church denouncing the acts and publishing a widely circulated letter condemning the Wayne County officials of being complicit in the murders. The incident prompted an investigation by the NAACP, and in total, 22 men were indicted, with four being convicted.[5]
References
- Wikipedia
- Nat'l Reg. of Hist. Places
- City of Hinesville: “Short History of Liberty County”. < PDF > (document attached). According to the Liberty County Digest in 1851, there were about 100 plantations along the county coast. Only six were larger than 1000 acres and had over 100 slaves. They were owned by Joseph H. Jones Sr., T. B. Barnard, Moses L. Jones, Roswell King Jr., George Washington Walthour and Jacob Walburg. Walburg’s was located on St. Catherine’s Island, which he owned. Mary Jane Hazzard Bacon, resided just a block from the Liberty County Courthouse and owned 44 slaves. … With the end of the war and all the slaves freed, the rice growing was ended. Without the free labor the plantation owners could not get it done. The plantations were abandoned or sold to the freed slaves in small parcels.
- Recollections of a Southern Daughter: A Memoir by Cornelia Jones Pond of Liberty County. By Cornelia Jones Pond. < GoogleBooks > Introduction (document attached)