McIntosh County Courthouse

Photo: Keith Hair

Note: This is NOT the official web site of McIntosh County or of any county officials; it is an educational web site about the history of the county courthouse and the county itself.  For the address and phone number of the courthouse and county officials, see the NaCO web page for McIntosh County, linked below:

Address and Phone Number: See NaCO web page for McIntosh County

Location: Darien

Date Built: 1872

Architectural Style:

Designer: Unknown

Other Information: The first courthouse was built in 1800 and was used until 1864, when Union troops burned it down. The present courthouse was completed in 1872, was remodeled after a fire in 1931, and had several additions built around the original structure in 1973. In 1986, the courthouse was damaged by fire.

County Courthouse Historical Marker: Click here

County History: McIntosh County was created from Liberty County on Dec. 19, 1793 by an act of the General Assembly (Ga. Laws 1793, p. 10). Georgia's 18th county was named for the McIntosh family -- particularly Capt. John McIntosh (who in 1736 led a group of Scot Highlanders in the settlement of Darien) and his son Gen. Lachlan McIntosh (who was a hero of the American Revolution).

County Seat: The first Europeans to occupy the locality were Spanish missionaries who settled the Santo Domingo de Talaje mission at or near the site of Darien near the mouth of the Altamaha River. In 1721, South Carolina built Fort King George at the site of Darien. However, sickness, climate, and biting insects led Carolina to abandon the fort in 1727. Three years after the arrival of the first Georgia colonists, a group of Highlanders (many from the county Inverness-shire, Scotland) settled the site as New Inverness. There, on the bank of a waterway, they built Fort Darien, named to honor a former Scottish colony in Panama named Darien (believed to be a mispronunciation of the Indian name, Tarena). Shortly after the fort was built, the name of the community was changed from New Inverness to Darien. When McIntosh County was created in 1793, Darien served as seat of county government. On Dec. 12, 1816, the General Assembly incorporated Darien as a town. Two years later, on Dec. 18, 1818, the legislature reincorporated Darien as a city and designated it permanent county seat of McIntosh County. In 1864, Union troops burned down the courthouse, and after the war a new home for county government was needed. Some McIntosh residents sought to have the county seat moved to a more central location, and in 1866 the General Assembly directed that an election be held. Each voter was entitled to indicated the site preferred for McIntosh county seat, with the site getting more votes than any other being selected. In the Jan. 1867 election, Darien polled more votes than any other site, so it remained as county seat.

Maps

• Historical Maps of McIntosh County
• Georgia DOT Map of McIntosh County, pdf (1416K)

Size of County (Total Area): 574.8 square miles

County Rank in Total Area: 17th out of 159

Population:

McIntosh County

• 10,847 (2000)
• McIntosh County Historical Population Profile

City of Darien

• 1,719 (2000)

© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, The University of Georgia

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