Jason Williams tells West Point’s history

WEST POINT — The Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society (CVHS) had a very different kind of meeting for its summer program, but everyone present seemed to enjoy it. It was one of the organization’s first in-person meetings since the outbreak of Covid in 2020. Since then, most of the quarterly meetings have taken place online via Zoom. The Saturday meeting was a bit inside and a bit outside. It took place underneath the West Point River Park pavilion on the west bank of the Chattahoochee.

There could not have been a better site to hold it since the program was all about the history of the town. Mayor Steve Tramell and wife Margaret were there to take in the program along with Larry Duncan, who owns the historic Magnolia House behind Hawkes Library. Also present were a good many other people who have West Point, Georgia close to their hearts.

Another interesting part of the program is that there were three speakers, not just one. Current CVHS President Jason Williams talked about the area’s Native American period. The Voice editor Ron Williams discussed the city’s pioneer days and former President Malinda Powers talked about West Point’s post-Civil War history, which will be covered in separate articles.

Jason Williams said that West Point’s location at the head of the Chattahoochee fall line is a big part of its history. Starting at West Point, the river drops close to 400 feet before it reaches the end of the fall line near Columbus.

The river has a good gravity flow behind it, making for faster transportation than in the flat portions of the Chattahoochee. There are also lots of shoals providing good places to fish. This attracted Native Americans during the Archaic Period.

“The indigenous period goes back thousands of years,” Williams said. “Archaeological records in the area go back to the Early Archaic Period. This inhibition carried on through the Woodland and Mississippian periods through the time the Creek Indians were living here. The river was a good transportation route, there were lots of fish in the river and game nearby.”

The banks of streams were good places to grow corn and other agricultural crops.

In the 1700s, English traders followed long-established Native American trails to trade with the five tribes – the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Seminoles.

There were two Creek villages north of West Point. One was known as Ocfuskoochee Tallahassee and was located just south of the present location of West Point Dam. There’s a historical marker near the Hardley Creek bridge on the State Line Road telling of it. With the coming migration of settlers of European descent, the village was largely abandoned by the Revolutionary War. Several miles to the north, near the present location of Rocky Point Park, was another Creek village known as Okfuskenena. It was later known as the Burnt Village after Georgia militia attacked and set fire to the village in 1793. Survivors then moved westward toward Okfuskee Town on the Tallapoosa River.

“In the early 1700s, Georgia was a small British colony centered around Savannah,” Williams said. “The colony’s boundary grew westward in stages as more and more settlers moved in, and the native peoples were displaced. In the late 1700s, President George Washington appointed Benjamin Hawkins an Indian Agent for the region including the Chattahoochee River. In 1798, he took a journey along the west bank of the river and kept a journal of what he saw. This is thought to be the first written description of our area.”

Throughout the eighteenth century, Georgia claimed the land all the way west to the Mississippi River. In 1802, Georgia made an agreement with the U.S. government to give up its claims west of the Chattahoochee. This resulted in the creation of territories in Mississippi and Alabama. Mississippi would become a state in 1817 and Alabama would become one in 1819.

“The U.S. government attempted to make treaties with the Creek Indians, but all this led to them being moved west of the Mississippi,” Williams said. “The Creek War of 1813-14 involved a civil war between two factions of the Creeks. The red stick Creeks wanted war and the white sticks felt that peaceful assimilation was the better option.”

The involvement of U.S. military forces led by General Andrew Jackson and militia forces from Georgia made it a one-sided outcome, ending with the Creeks giving up much land in the region.

West Point was chartered under the name Franklin in 1828. With a town upriver in Heard County having the same name, this was the source of great confusion. Mail was frequently sent to the wrong Franklin, and something needed to be done about this. It took four years to do it, but in 1832 “South Franklin” took on a new name: West Point. This was a fitting name since it marks the westernmost bend of the Chattahoochee.

Ironically, West Point and Franklin are today the only cities that have two banks of the river. The river runs through the middle of each town.

West Point was a rough-hewn place in its earliest days. “The Chattahoochee was not an ideal place for river traffic,” Williams said. “The upper part of its journey from Standing Peachtree (early Atlanta) to West Point was a feasible undertaking. Some historians speculate that cargo was offloaded at the north end of the fall line in West Point and transported to General John Floyd’s army at Fort Mitchell. After the first shipment was successful, five other barges were built for transportation between Standing Peachtree and West Point.”

The Creeks still had a presence in Georgia until the mid-1820s and in Alabama until a second Creek war in 1836. With the second Treaty of Indian Springs in 1826, Chief William McIntosh agreed to give up the remaining claims in what is now Georgia. This contradicted what had been agreed to in the first Treaty of Indian Springs in 1821. The other Creek chiefs were not in agreement with this.

McIntosh, who was a first cousin of Georgia Governor George Troup, had effectively signed his death warrant. He was later executed by a band of red stick warriors led by Menewa, famous for having lost the Battle of Horseshoe Bend eleven years earlier.

The 1826 Treaty of Washington confirmed the ownership of the lands that became Troup County. Creeks who were still living there were forced westward. They could stay in Alabama until the second Creek War in 1836 resulted in almost all of them having to leave the state.

One group of Creeks managed to hide out in the swamps and pine thickets of southwest Alabama until coming forward in the 1920s. They identified themselves as the Poarch band of the Creeks and were allowed to stay.

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