Stop The Rock Quarry - Save Historic Fortson, Ga

FORTSON HISTORIC DISTRICT
Overview
By: B. Fortson

The community of Fortson is unincorporated and has never had city limits. The area received its name from the Fortson Post Office and the Fortson Depot. There is still a Fortson Post Office, but it has been relocated. The community is located on the Muscogee County-Harris County line approximately 10 miles north of the downtown area of Columbus. Fortson was historically a rural and an agricultural based community. Today, those traditional uses have changed and commercial and industrial uses are creeping into this area.

The Getzen House

General History Thomas Daniel Fortson was born August 25, 1815 in Elbert County Georgia. Isaac Almond, husband of his older sister Elizabeth, was appointed as his guardian after his parents died in the late 1820’s. He moved to Muscogee county with Isaac Almond in the early 1830’s and it appears that he lived with the Almonds until he married Elizabeth Pruitt on November 24,1840. Deeds found in the Fortson house show that on December 22, 1841, Thomas Daniel purchased the land on which the Fortson house stands from Matthew and George McCrary for two thousand dollars. Matthew McCrary was married to Thomas Daniels’ youngest sister Almeda Harriet Fortson. The deed excluded one area of land around the gin house. This property was originally drawn in the land lottery by William Pool and then sold to the McCray brothers on September 23, 1839. Slave receipts show that Thomas Daniel Fortson owned slaves as early as 1839. In 1847 he inherited 480 acres from his father-in-law, Henry Pruitt. This property was in land lots 261,262, and 227 and located about one mile south of lot 199, where the Fortson house now stands. In 1850 census records show that Thomas Daniel owned 12 slaves and property valued at $2,000. He bought 88 acres of lot 200 from Bradford Peddy in 1850. In this deed, 1 ¼ acres was reserved on the west side of the Lagrange Road (currently Fortson Road) for a graveyard. This appears to be the same location on which the Getzen Memorial Baptist Church was later built. On March 28, 1851 Elizabeth Fortson died and on September 25, 1851 Thomas Daniel married Georgia Mealing from Muscogee County.
The Fortson House In 1858 Thomas Daniel contracted Joseph Parker to build the Fortson house for five hundred dollars. His diary records that the chimneys were completed on May 29. 1858 and they moved in on September 20, 1858. By 1860 he had four children, 24 slaves, real estate valued at $5,000 and a personal estate of $17, 393. He ran a gristmill on the Heiferhorn Creek during the war. The 1869 tax records show he owned 600 acres valued at $3,000. In 1874 he bought 100 more acres of lot 199 just east of the property where the Fortson house now stands.The Fortson House was added to the National Historic Registry in 1999.	The Fortson House
Fortson Station & the Railroad The North and South Railroad company built the first railroad to run through Fortson, Georgia. The company was incorporated by an act of the General Assembly of the state on October 24, 1870. The plans were for a narrow gauge railroad to run from Columbus via Lagrange and Carrollton to Rome. On September 28, 1871 Thomas Daniel Fortson granted right of way to the North and South Railroad Company in exchange for four shares of stock. The first trains between Columbus and Hamilton probably began to run in 1873. The stations listed in 1878 were Clapps Factory, 3 ½ miles; Cleghorn, 7 miles; Blanchard, 10 miles; Cataula, 17 miles; Kingsboro, 20 miles and Hamilton, 23 ½ miles. The area that is now known as Fortson was originally called Blanchard. A receipt for the Columbus Enquirer-Sun dated 1883 is written to T.D. Fortson, Blanchard Georgia. The North and South Railroad Company was sold by the Governor of Georgia in 1878 and reorganized as the Columbus & Rome Railroad Company in 1879. The Fortson station was established in 1885 eight miles north of Columbus near the Fortson house. The Fortson station was made of pine and was built in a style characteristic of small town railway stations. It had a loading platform, station agent office and separate white and colored waiting rooms. It was torn down in the 1940’s. Thomas Willis Fortson, son of Thomas Daniel was station agent and ran a general store at the same location. In the preceding year, February 5, 1884, T.W. Fortson was named Postmaster of Fortson, Georgia and it was during this time that the name of this area changed from Blanchard to Fortson. The Fortson station Freight Report from 1886 lists the stations as: Columbus, Fortson, Cataula, Hamilton, Chipley, Stinson and Greenville. The C. & R. R. Co. merged with the Savannah & Western Railroad Co. in 1882 and was conveyed to foreclosure to the Central of Georgia Railway Co. in 1895.
In 1905 the Central of Georgia changed the track from narrow gauge to standard gauge and extended the line to Raymond, Georgia, where connection with the Central of Georgia’s Griffin to Chattanooga line was made. In 1908 T. W. Fortson obtained agreement from the Central of Georgia to cultivate a strip of land on their right of way. There was a small seed house located between the store and the tracks. The Central of Georgia in its’ run to Atlanta arrived at Fortson twenty-six minutes after departure with a stop at 2nd Avenue and a flag stop at Nankipooh. In 1947 the Man O’ War was started by the Central of Georgia with two trains daily between Atlanta and Columbus. The train could be flagged down at Fortson eighteen minutes after leaving Columbus. Passenger train service stopped in the 1960’s. The line currently is owned by the Norfolk Southern Railroad and hauls freight.
Near the Fortson Station was a general store and Post Office. The original store was located across the road from the railroad station. It was built of wood and burned in the early 1900’s. Apparently while every one watched the store burn, the Fortson house was robbed. It was T.W. Fortson’s opinion that the fire was set as a diversion. The store was rebuilt on the west side of the Fortson Road in 1904 out of brick and without a crawl space so that it would be “arson proof”. The store was a general country store and the gathering place for the community. Gasoline was sold after the advent of automobiles. The son of T.W. Fortson, Luther Getzen Fortson, was postmaster and ran the store from the 1930’s until his death in 1963. The store closed in the mid 1960’s and was briefly a factory where inertia nutcrackers were manufactured. It has been vacant since the late 1960’s.	The Fortson Post Office
The Getzen House Pictured at the top of this page, the Getzen House was built by Andrew E. Williams, on land inherited by his wife Martha Fortson. The Williams married in 1882 and Thomas Daniel died in 1885 and the house appears to have been built in this period. The house is unique in that it is located exactly on the county line with half the house in Muscogee and half in Harris County. In 1890 the house sold to Samuel Luther Getzen and his wife Fannie Olivia Mealing Getzen. They were the in-laws of Martha’s brother Thomas Willis Fortson. The Getzens were originally from Edgefield S.C. and came to Fortson to visit their daughter and to allow Samuel to recover from osteomyelitis. Fannie taught school in South Carolina and opened the first school in Fortson shortly after her arrival. The one room structure was located just across the road from her house in Harris /County. She taught children from the Fortson and Mulberry Grove Community the entire year without summer vacations.
Getzen Baptist Church Agriculture was the main source of income in Fortson. Much of the area is terraced for cotton. Later, after the boll weevil and civil war, several acres of terraced land near the Fortson house was planted with pecan trees. During the War Between the States, Thomas Daniel Fortson operated a gristmill on the Heiferhorn Creek in Harris County. T.W. Fortson ran a small dairy operation in the early 1900’s (a dairy barn is still standing). Mr. Reese operated a cotton gin a few miles down Fortson Road in the early 1900’s. His gin ledger from 1913 reveals that T.W. Fortson ginned nine bales of cotton and S. L. Getzen ginned eight. A sawmill, operated by the Franklin Lumber Co. from the 1920’s to the 1940’s, was located south of the store on the Ilges property.	Getzen Baptist Church
The first church in the Fortson area was the Mt. Zion Baptist Church. The church was formed in 1831. The church records before 1868 have been lost, but church history records that its earliest location was a building on the farm of Thomas Daniel Fortson. In 1860 the Church moved several miles south to the Double Churches Area. The reason for the move is not known. Oral tradition holds that the building at Fortson burned but no records have been found to substantiate this. In 1904 the church returned to Fortson. The Mt. Zion church minutes of August 20, 1904 state: Whereas the Brethren and friends have built a house of worship in Fortson convenient to a large constituency. Therefore be it resolved: 1st, that Brethren S.L. Getzen and wife, T. W. and wife, and A. J. Hubbard and wife with Sisters, T.E. Getzen and Georgia and Fannie Fortson be authorized to establish a branch of Mount Zion in said house at Fortson. 2nd, Resolved that: these brethren be authorized to perform all the functions usually performed by Baptist Churches, with the approval of the Mother church. 3rd, Resolve: that the work contemplated by this action be placed in the care of Deacon S. L. Getzen. The church and cemetery stand near the site of the old McCray cemetery on land donated by Thomas Willis Fortson. A baptismal pool is located next to a small stream in the woods behind the Getzen house. The church was active until 1967 when membership declined to six members. The church was inactive for eleven years until it was restore and reopened in 1978 under the leadership of one of its former pastors, Rev. Richard Chaplin. In 1989 a fellowship hall was built near the church. The current pastor is Dr. Will Rodgers.
Getzen Baptist Church Cemetery	Getzen Baptist Church Baptistry