The area that now comprises Murray County was long the home of native Americans. Paleolithic and Archaic Era Indians were gradually replaced by the Woodland Indians after 1000 B.C. Although hunting, fishing, and gathering remained the principle sources of food, agricultural methods and larger, more permanent villages characterized this Woodland period. The Woodland Indians were also the first to develop religious systems and to build dirt mounds over graves of important people. Mound building reached its height during the succeeding "Mississippian Age." Evidence of this period exists in Murray County near Carters Darn. Several mounds have been excavated there.
Around 900 A.D. a strong group of Indians from the north invaded Georgia, probably from Tennessee. About 200 years later the older natives reconquered parts of Georgia and their descendants, the Creeks, later played an important par! in Georgia history. The invaders from the north retained control of the Murray area although some Creek placenames were retained in North Georgia. By 1540, when the Spanish explorer Hemando DeSoto came through Georgia, two groups of Indians existed, the Creeks in the south and in the north the people who were to be called Cherokees.
An Indian town called Guaxule is mentioned in DeSoto's records. The Spaniards received a warm, peaceful welcome from the chief of this village which included some 300 houses. Five hundred warriors dressed in skins with feather decorations escorted their leader to his meeting with De Soto. Georgia historian Charles C. Jones, Jr. identified Guaxule as being in Murray County. Apparently the Cherokees occupied an old Creek settlement and later renamed it "Coosawattee" which means "old Creek place." DeSoto's men stayed in the area about 4 days and following their departure, the Cherokees were left alone for about 200 years.
In the early days of the 18th century, the Cherokees roamed freely over most of what is now the states of Virginia, Kentucky. North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee. Georgia, and Alabama. As the white settlers moved inward from the Atlantic the native Americans were forced to relinquish pieces of land, first in Virginia and South Carolina, then in North Carolina and Georgia, then in Tennessee and Alabama. Finally, by the 1820's the once vast Cherokee Nation included only a small area where North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia, and Alabama join. But many changes had taken place within the Nation in that space of 100 years.
The Cherokees had decided that there was no need to try to fight the encroaching white people, but rather agreed to settle down, build log homes, become an agricultural nation and adopt the ways of the whites in hopes of retaining their homeland. Traders were allowed into the Cherokee domain as well as French and British Indian agents. As the American colonists revolted for their independence, the Cherokees felt they should fight with the British, feeling that the mighty Englishmen would surely defeat the Americans and would then treat the Cherokees in a favorable manner. Unfortunately for the Cherokees, the British lost the colonies.
After the War for Independence, the Cherokees made peace with the new United States Government. More and more whites pushed toward the Indian lands and with this came a greater exchange of ideas between the Indians and the white culture. Murray County soon had a number of white residents who lived among and married Cherokees.
Coosawattee Old Town, located near Carters, became a thriving settlement. Ebenezer Newton traveled through the area in 1818 and found that Coosawattee was "a considerable town of the Indians on both sides of the river." Newton commented that the Indians were "very civil and kind" and that the area was very beautiful. The Newton party spent the night at "Captain Foster's" in a comfortable log cabin. Foster was a prominent Cherokee who had several slaves. Newton remarked that the blacks spoke English better than their master.
Other early names near Coosawattee were the McDaniels, Harlans, and the Martins. Judge Martin built the house now known as Carters Quarter. During the Carter ownership of the land much was discovered about the earlier Indian settlement. In the 1880's two large silver crosses which pointed to DeSoto's visit were unearthed. In the late 1920's and 1930's excavations were conducted on the burial mounds, by Prof. Warren Moorehead, while in 1934 a large cave was discovered and was thought to contain lost Indian treasures. Professor J.R. Stull was told of the cave by an aged Cherokee in Utah and followed markings on trees to the spot where some "stone images" were found. Iron objects, shells, arrow points, pottery, and skeletons had been found during the earlier diggings. Other burials were unearthed in the 1960's prior to the building of Carters Dam.
Apparently this area, under its various names of Guaxule, Coosawattee Old Town, and Carters, is the oldest continually occupied "town" in Murray County.
Murray County Heritage