The area that is now Hart County was part of the Cherokee Nation up to the mid 1700s. A number of treaties with the natives in 1773 and 1783 provided the lands that formed Franklin County in 1784 and Elbert County in 1790. Portions of those counties were used to create Hart County in 1843. Settlers, primarily from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina of English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh descent, moved into the area, obtained title to the land and began clearing the land for homesites and cultivation, in many instances with the help of their slaves. The first settlements were made adjacent to major waterways, the Savannah and Tugaloo Rivers and smaller creeks, to take advantage of the rich bottomland, the most suitable area for farming.
On December 7, 1853, Hart County, named for Revolutionary War heroine, Nancy Hart, was created by Act of the Legislature. It is the only Georgia county named for a woman. The first county courthouse was a two-story frame building located on Lot 1 on the northeastern side of the square in Hartwell. It was the first structure built in the new town. This courthouse was destroyed by fire in 1900 and was replaced in 1901 with a two-story Neoclassical style building designed by Atlanta architect J. W. Golucke. Unfortunately, this courthouse was lost to fire as well in the 1960s and was replaced by the current one-story courthouse.
It is a modern and functional design that was secured when I was here. You can still walk the grounds which have a number of monuments and memorials including for the Vietnam War, a combined Korean and World War memorial and of course a Civil War. There is street parking on all four sides of the court house square.
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