1825 to 1850

In 1826, The Messenger described a growing city with twenty respectable stores, sixteen on the west bank of the river and four on its east bank. Ferry service continued across the river between NewTown and Macon until the first wooden toll bridge was built in 1826, where Otis Redding Bridge now stands. Boasting sixty families, Macon was fast becoming Middle Georgia’s regional center.

Also in 1826, Ambrose Baber, MD, led a movement to reserve one hundred acres of forest along the riverbanks to build a “Central City Park” for the health and welfare of the community. Dr. Baber believed the growing community had to think of generations to come.

From the fertile farms surrounding Macon, goods were loaded in Macon on riverboats headed to the ports at Darien and Brunswick where they were exchanged for staples before beginning the slow boat return up river to Macon. Riverboats Catherine, Rising Star, American Eagle, and Thunderbolt were unloaded and reloaded with goods from wharves off Wharf Street, known today as Riverside Drive. The North Carolina was the first steamboat to dock in Macon in 1829.

Jarrell Plantation used Macon for transport, trade, and for the necessities of frontier farming. Today this nineteenth-century working Piedmont farm just north of Macon on the Ocmulgee River can still be experienced. Owned and operated by the state of Georgia, the farm provides visitors a window to view several generations of Jarrell family and Piedmont life, including the 160-year-old log cabin, progression of larger residences, and the mills and mechanics of depression era farming.

Although the river was still the major source of transport, the narrow and rutted Federal Road, grew in importance. In good weather one could leave by stagecoach at noon from Milledgeville—the state capital at the time—with a stop in old Clinton, arrive in Macon by 7:00 p.m. In the morning, the stage traveled on to Columbus.

South Carolina was attracting Georgia’s cotton to Augusta for transport to Charleston by a new railroad. Macon and Savannah were determined to build a Georgia railroad. In 1833 news of the Central Railroad and Canal Company charter was celebrated in Macon with the ringing of church and steamboat bells. The first train in Georgia was offloaded from a barge in Macon in 1838. Christened “The Ocmulgee,” it provided transport above the fall line of the river, from the inland port of Macon to the Piedmont farming town of Forsyth.

 In 1843, the Central of Georgia railroad connected Macon to Savannah, Georgia’s largest city. At the new railroad’s dedication, a senator from South Carolina toasted Macon, the queen inland city of the south “at the head of the longest railroad in the world.”⁵ By 1846 the Central of Georgia was extended to Chattanooga crossing another railroad 100 miles north of Macon, giving impetus to the growth of what would become Atlanta. Soon, the Southwestern railroad reached out from Macon to the rich cotton lands around Albany.

The worship of God was fundamental to both ancient and modern civilizations on the Ocmulgee. The Temple Lodge was the most prominent structure of the Mississippians, while later Muscogee celebrated the annual “Green Corn”or “Busk Ceremony.” Among settlers’ log cabins, laymen organized worship. Revivals were attended under brush arbors, while baptisms in the river symbolized the washing away of sins.

Circuit-riding preachers delivered sermons to many of the frontier churches. One of the first pioneer churches on the west bank served by a preacher on horseback was Damascus Methodist Church. Founded in 1822, the congregation served the families of the Piedmont farms just north of Macon. Today Damascus is known as Martha Bowman Memorial United Methodist Church.

The city of Macon’s first organized congregations included Christ Episcopal in 1825 and First Presbyterian, Mulberry Street United Methodist, and First Baptist in 1826. St. Joseph’s Catholic, Vineville United Methodist, and Beth Israel followed in 1841, 1846, and 1859, respectively.

Although most African Americans worshiped in special sections of the city’s established churches, an African American Presbyterian congregation organized separately in 1838. The church is now known as Washington Avenue Presbyterian Church.

Today Macon, in the heart of the “Bible belt”, reportedly has more churches per capita than any city in the country. Macon’s David Bottoms gives testimony to the city’s religious heritage in his poem “Free Grace at Rose Hill”:

In a harbinger of Macon sacrifice to come, Macon volunteers answered the call for Texas freedom in 1836. The Middle Georgia battalion carried with them a flag made by Miss Joanna Troutman from Bibb County of plain white silk with a blue star of five points on both sides. This was the flag that flew above the council as Texas declared its independence and flew above the battle of Goliad in the Spring of 1836 when all but four of the Georgia battalion and all but 20 in General Fannin’s command of 371 were slaughtered by Santa Anna. The “Lone Star Flag” was later adopted for the flag and seal of the republic and subsequently of the state.  

Simri Rose chose the scenic hills overlooking the Ocmulgee River in the 1830s as the site for a cemetery that came to be known as Rose Hill. Today Rose Hill’s history and artwork is framed by the natural serenity of its winding paths. Nearby historic Riverside and Linwood Cemeteries, along with Rose Hill, enshrine the resting place of generations of Maconites. Upon the banks of the Ocmulgee, the living still come to pause and reflect on the determination and sacrifice that made this city.