Bartram entered the northeast Georgia mountains in May of 1775 via the old Charles Town trade path, a route that had been utilized by colonial traders and military campaigns for almost one hundred years, and native Americans before that. Bartram departed Charles Town (Charleston) for Cherokee country on April 22nd, 1775, arriving at Oconee Mountain near modern day Oconee State Park around May 19th, crossing the Chattooga River soon after at Earl’s Ford. From there he followed Warwoman Creek towards modern day Clayton and what was then the abandoned Cherokee village of Stekoe. He described Martin’s Creek Falls and crossed the Blue Ridge Divide at Courthouse Gap, describing species new to 18th century botany, such as Fraser’s Magnolia. This is the standard interpretation of his route, but cartographer and ancient trails expert Lamar Marshall has recently presented a more likely route, based on a much deeper analysis of Bartram’s descriptions of the landscape in his Travels and on the ancient pathways that traversed the landscape. Bartram left the Charles Town trade path near the abandoned Cherokee Town of Oconee in the Blue Ridge foothills and Marshall believes that he followed what was known as the Station Road to Chattooga Old Town.
The Station Road was an old Cherokee trail that connected Chattooga Old Town to Oconee Town. This would put him crossing the Chattooga closer to where the Bartram Trail actually begins today at Russell Bridge. From here he followed the Cherokee Trail along what is now State Highway 28 up to Satulah Mountain, which Bartram titled, “Mount Magnolia.” Marshall’s analysis is hard to dispute. Bartram describes crossing “Falling Creek” twice, which has always stumped historians, but which makes sense should he have travelled up to the Highlands Plateau and descended the established trade path down to the Chattooga. He also describes the “highest peak in the Cherokee mountains” and “an elevated plain of sublimely high forests”, which does not fit the description seen from the Pinnacle, where Bartram is believed to have been at the time, and to which he named Mount Magnolia.
Bartram had made his first encounter with Fraser Magnolia earlier while travelling into the mountains, and this new species of Magnolia he named Mountain Magnolia. Another consideration is the absence of the species on the Pinnacle. Marshall also makes the point that Bartram crossed the Chattooga he described the abandoned Cherokee village known now as Chattooga Old Town. There was no such town at Earl’s Ford, which gives credence to this potential route. Regardless of the route he took, the Bartram Trail today in Georgia follows ancient travel routes that were ones he likely used.
Another interesting dimension to this area’s history is the river itself. The river was made famous by James Dickey’s classic novel Deliverance (1970) and the subsequent film (1972) by that name. The movie’s critical acclaim led to the Chattooga becoming a highly popular destination, immediately attracting inexperienced boaters who descended the dangerous river with little skill or experience, with many trips ending in death. Its Federal designation as a Wild and Scenic River in 1974 insured the river’s protection, and as you walk the Bartram from its beginning you will see no development along its shores, which is uncommon among most Appalachian streams of this size today. It is truly a wild river, and despite the microplastics, the alterations from logging over the last century, and the roads lacing through the landscape, it is still as rugged and awe inspiring in its wholeness as when Bartram encountered it in 1775 and when Dickey first encountered it in the early seventies.
Dickey was an admirer of Bartram and wrote the introduction to a 1998 Penguin edition of Bartram’s Travels. Dickey said that “Few writers can give us, as Bartram does, the sense of this continually emerging wholeness, of the essential unity of nature – broken only where we break it -in all its multifarious magnitude, its swarming, direct and mysterious promise, and we may still, anytime we wish, open our eyes to it with Bartram, where at dawn over Georgia and Florida the sun is new every day, and light falls with the sure and daring creativity of God’s imagination, full on the ‘wondrous machine.’“ These are great thoughts to carry with you as you begin your journey on the Bartram Trail.