JENKINS COUNTY

 

Jenkins County was organized in 1905 from parts of Screven, Bulloch, Burke, and Emanuel counties and began its official operation January 1, 1906, making it the one hundred thirty-eighth county.  Its territory had been part of two original headright counties:  Effingham and Burke.

Jenkins County was named for Governor Charles J. Jenkins.  The county seat, Millen, was named for a distinguished attorney, John Millen of Savannah.  At its beginning, the town was called "Seventy-nine" because that was the distance in miles from Savannah, the center of all commerce and culture for that region.

 

Near Millen is the Jones House, built in 1762 and used as a stage coach stop called Birdsville.  It was more than a century old when General Sherman's troops looted it and set the building afire during their march to the sea through Georgia.  The same soldiers put the fire out when they learned that the mistress of the house refused to leave her sickbed.

 

The community of Scarboro is far older than the county itself.  In 1839 it was designated Station Number Seven on the Central Railroad connecting growers of this area with the markets in Savannah. 

 

Also pre-dating the county and all its towns was the Old Buckhead Church which was organized before the Revolution under the leadership of the Reverend Matthew Moore.  It was one of the oldest Baptist congregations in the country.  In 1864 the churchyard became the site of a skirmish between opposing cavalry forces, Kilpatrick's Union Cavalry and Wheeler's Confederate Corps.  Moving south, the Union troops tore up the pews of the church to obtain lumber for a bridge across Buckhead Creek.

 

Nearby was a forty-two acre enclosure that was to have been used as a prisoner-of-war camp by the Confederates, intended to relieve the crowded Andersonville Prison.  The Union advance was so rapid, however, that none of the prisoners had been transferred there and the facility was abandoned without ever having being used.  The site was later made into a state park.