How the States Got Their Shapes Too_ The People Behind the Borderlines - Mark Stein [41]
In December 1804 one such confrontation involved Buncombe County constable John Havner and several Walton County residents. It ended when Havner was struck in the face with the butt of a rifle, an injury that proved fatal.6 In response, North Carolina sent a unit from its state militia, under the command of Brittain. Walton County residents quickly massed to defend themselves. In Georgia the Augusta Chronicle reported the following in February 1805:
On the 19th of December, a party of horsemen consisting of 70 or 80 men, and headed by a Major James Brittain, marched into [Walton] County from Buncombe, North Carolina.… They took and made prisoners of Richard Williamson, James Lafoy, J. Cloud, G. Williamson, esquires, and several others.… Five they discharged and ten were kept and marched off like prisoners of war to Morganton, North Carolina.
Brittain’s foray resulted in the battle of McGaha Branch, where his forces quickly overtook the Georgians. Those who escaped regrouped atop Selica Hill. But once again Brittain’s men prevailed. Both “battles” might be more accurately described as skirmishes. The number of casualties is uncertain but known to have been low. Some accounts say one to fourteen people died, others say no deaths resulted.7 What is certain today is that, unbeknownst to those involved, both clashes took place north of the Ophan Strip. Neither side knew, at the time, just where the boundaries were.
Those arrested and taken to the Morganton jail included the leading officials of Walton County. All escaped. How they managed to do so was not recorded. Notably, however, they did not continue to attempt to enforce Georgia’s jurisdictional claims in the region. Though Georgia and North Carolina continued to dispute the region—periodically agreeing to surveys, then disagreeing on the results—only North Carolina’s officials exerted jurisdiction. The people in the region also continued to conflict, often resulting in assaults and vandalism. These acts, along with Brittain’s foray, constitute what has come to be called the Walton War.
North Carolina-Georgia engagements
In 1810, with North Carolina solidifying its control, Georgia hired Andrew Ellicott, one of the nation’s foremost surveyors, to locate the 35th parallel. Milledgeville’s Georgia Journal reported in 1812 what his findings were rumored to be (and, in fact, were): “No official communication has yet been made by Mr. Ellicott to our Executive; but we learn that no part of Walton County belongs to this state.” Georgia took no official action in response to Ellicott’s survey. In fact, it came to act in ways that sought to render the dispute invisible.
During that time, James Brittain too began to disappear from the public mind. When he died (likely in the years near Ellicott’s survey), he was buried in what would become the family gravesite in Mills River, North Carolina. Today his grave is invisible, covered by tract homes.8
More pressing needs also erased his memory. In 1860 Georgia scrapped the constitution it had been using, which included a description of its boundaries, and replaced it with the constitution of the Confederate State of Georgia. It contained no boundary descriptions, since the last thing the Confederate states needed was conflict among themselves. Georgia’s Confederate constitution was replaced during Reconstruction with a constitution that also included no assertion of boundaries. In this instance, those writing this constitution were imposing an end to a national conflict; they too had no wish to stir up local trouble.
For the same reasons, regional historians