Carnesville: Named for a Revolutionary Soldier-Lawyer

You're passing near Carnesville, the seat of Franklin County, Georgia, and its story starts with a Revolutionary War soldier who swapped his sword for a law book.

Franklin County was carved out in seventeen eighty-four and named for Benjamin Franklin. The county seat was laid out in eighteen oh five and named for Thomas Peters Carnes, a Maryland-born colonel who served in the Continental Army and later received bounty land in this part of Georgia for his service. Carnes went on to become Georgia's attorney general, a state circuit court judge, and a member of the United States House of Representatives. In eighteen oh six, Carnesville was officially proclaimed the permanent county seat.

The town built around cotton and corn, raised a neo-classical courthouse in nineteen oh six, and today remains a small county seat of roughly seven hundred residents.