By: Mrs. Wallace Leigh Harris, Pub. 1957, Reprint 2018, (2 volumes in 1), 1120 pages, 0-89308-948-6. Pulaksi County was created in 1808 from Portions of Laurens and Washington counties. Bleckley county was created in 1912 from Pulaski County. This reprint is a consolidation of the two volumes into one book. The time frame of this book begins with the creation of Pulaski County and continuing on through the creation of Bleckley County, with such topics as frontier life, Indians, trade & transportation, labor, farming, politics, education, newspapers and religion - all important in the development of the county. These types of HISTORY books can be very helpful in your research. They can help one develop ideas or pathways to those missing ancestors by showing the customs and traditions of local residents. This is very important in trying to figure out what significate factors were prevalent in the county, such as floods, droughts, matters of economic prosperity, matters of governmental intrusion or influence, or one of any number of things that might cause a person to stay or move on. The family researcher will be delighted with the authors 275 pages of some 163 biographical sketches of individuals and families. Mrs. Walker has also included numerous lists: pay rolls & muster rolls of soldiers who served in the War of 1812, lists of juriors from 1805, Pulaski County Marriages 1808-1956, Bleckley County Marriages 1913-1856, Pulaski County Wills 1809-1947, Bleckley County Wills 1913-1956, 1818 Tax Digest Pulaski County, 1827 Land Lottery, Graves of Revolutionary and 1812 Soldiers marked by DAR, and lists of Veteran s from WWI & WWII.

This examination of cultural change challenges the conventional view of the Georgia Pine Belt as an unchanging economic backwater. Its postbellum economy evolves from self-sufficiency to being largely dependent upon cotton. Before the Civil War, the Piney Woods easily supported a population of mostly yeomen farmers and livestock herders. After the war, a variety of external forces, spearheaded by Reconstruction-era New South boosters, invaded the region, permanently altering the social, political, and economic landscape in an attempt to create a South with a diversified economy. The first stage in the transformation -- railroad construction and a revival of steamboating -- led to the second stage: sawmilling and turpentining. The harvest of forest products during the 1870s and 1880s created new economic opportunities but left the area dependent upon a single industry that brought deforestation and the decline of the open-range system within a generation.

Hawkinsville lies along the banks of the Ocmulgee River in the heart of Georgias wiregrass country. Surrounded by some of the states most fertile cotton lands, the city became an important commercial center soon after its incorporation in 1836. By the eve of the Civil War, Hawkinsville boasted stately mansions, mercantile firms, gins, rail service, and a river port for the transportation of cotton. Although the Civil War took its toll, the city flourished in the late 19th and early 20th century. The revival of the cotton trade, together with the growing demand for the regions lumber and turpentine, boosted the citys economy and population. Newcomers from the North joined hands with long-established families to found banks, schools, hotels, churches, cotton mills, steamboat and railroad companies, and even a harness-racing track. Hawkinsville was hailed as Georgias Queen City of the Wiregrass.

The extraction of raw turpentine and tar from the southern longleaf pine—along with the manufacture of derivative products such as spirits of turpentine and rosin—constitutes what was once the largest industry in North Carolina and one of the most important in the South: naval stores production. In a pathbreaking study that seamlessly weaves together business, environmental, labor, and social history, Robert B. Outland III offers the first complete account of this sizable though little-understood sector of the southern economy. Outland traces the South’s naval stores industry from its colonial origins to the mid-twentieth century, when it was supplanted by the rising chemicals industry. A horror for workers and a scourge to the Southeast’s pine forests, the methods and consequences of this expansive enterprise remained virtually unchanged for more than two centuries. With its exacting attention to detail and exhaustive research, Tapping the Pines is an essential volume for anyone interested in the piney woods South.