Carrie Williams Jones County Historian

Jones County stood head and shoulders above the surrounding territory from 1827 to 1840 in leadership, wealth and production. She sent three and four Representatives to the legislature and her leading city of Clinton boasted 12 industrial plants, with a capital of $55,625.00 with over $100,000 in annual products, tanned hides, farming implements, lumber, corn, meal, flour, wagons, ox carts, 900 cotton gins annually and lumber products. There were three large taverns, two hotels, cotton warehouses, a photographic gallery, churches, schools, silversmith shops, saloons, blacksmith shops, and stores. Sherwood says in his Gazetteer of Georgia that there were over 55 homes in Clinton. In the thirty-year period until the War Between the States, she continued to grow and prosper. The 1850 census shows a total of 10,224 people and real estate value was $1,373,625 and personal property valuation was $3,525,464.