Baldwin County was created in 1803 from Creek Indian lands, the twenty-seventh county in Georgia to be designated.  From its original territory were made the counties of Jasper, Jones, Morgan, Putnam, and a small portion of Twiggs.  The county was named for Abraham Baldwin, a member of the Continental Congress and the author of the bill that created the first state university, now the University of Georgia.

 

Milledgeville, the county seat, was the state capital for sixty-one years, from 1807 until 1868.  The city had been named for John Milledge, a Revolutionary leader, a member of Congress, Georgia governor, and the man that donated most of the land for the university at the site of present day Athens.

 

Among Baldwin County's early settlers were at least thirty-eight Revolutionary War veterans, including Jim Thomas, and James Barrow, Congressman Barrow’s great-, great-, great-grandfather, who served with General George Washington at Valley Forge.  Beneficiaries of an early land lottery for veterans and their widows included an "Old Mrs. Clarke" who wore a silver plate on her skull as a result of being scalped by Indians.

 

In 1789 Pres. George Washington sent Gen. Benjamin Lincoln to the junction of the trading paths on the Oconee River in what was to become Baldwin County, there to settle a land dispute with the Creek Indians.  The country's first agent to the Creek Nation, James Seagrove, set up residence there in 1791.  The following year he distributed $13,000 worth of government food to Indians who were suffering from crop failure.

 

During the Civil War, in 1864, Union forces led by Gen. Sherman captured Milledgeville, which was the state capital at the time.  Secretary of State Nathan C. Barnett hid the Great Seal of Georgia and the legislative minutes in a pig pen near the Capitol.