TREUTLEN COUNTY

 

Treutlen County was created in 1917 from parts of Emanuel and Montgomery counties, within the territory first designated as Washington County.  Treutlen County became the one hundred fifty-second county to be created in Georgia.  The earliest settlers entered the region in about 1784.  Treutlen County bears the name of John Adam Treutlen who served in the Provincial Congress of 1775 and defeated Button Gwinnett in 1777 to become Georgia's first governor.  He was declared a rebel governor by the Crown and is believed to have been murdered by Tories while visiting in Orangeburg, South Carolina.  Soperton, the county seat, was named for a prominent local citizen.

 

Treutlen County is part of the wiregrass section, its deep pine woods being the source of its wealth.  Though early settlers who came from the Carolinas cleared small farms in the area, their reason for coming was the forest harvest.  Farming operations were small and generally only for the maintenance of the immediate residents.

 
Governor George M. Troup is buried at Rosemont in the southwest corner of the county, one of his many plantations.  He died there while visiting from his home plantation near Dublin in 1856.  The Governor had been born in 1780 on the Tombigbee River in a part of Georgia that was to become part of Alabama.