The Georgia General Assembly established Greene County, Georgia on 3 February 1786 from the northern portion of Washington County. It was named in honor of Gen. Nathanael Greene, the hero of the Revolutionary War among the Southern colonists. From the time of its creation, Greene County was a literal battle zone as the Oconee War raged for the county's first decade, 1786–1796. The General Assembly set the western border of Greene County as the Oconee River, the boundary between the Creeks and the State of Georgia according to two recent treaties. Many Creeks questioned the validity of the treaties and refused to accept the loss of their lands east of the Oconee, including Greene County. This made the new county a hotly-contested border region between the Creek Nation and Georgia.

The village of Greensborough was designated as the county seat in 1787, and later that year, a war party of Creeks attacked the settlement in November 1787 and burned the wooden courthouse and a few cabins. Throughout the next decade, groups of Creeks conducted numerous raids on white farms across the county. They intentionally steered clear of killing white settlers, an act that would prompt retribution by the Americans. Instead, groups of warriors focused on stealing horses, cattle, hogs, and other livestock from settlers in attempts to drive the whites from the region.¹

In the mid-1780s, a relatively small group of settlers maintained residence in Greene County while the threats from the Creeks lingered. Capt. John Hill, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, received an 862½-acre tract of land on Richland Creek in 1785 for his mililtary service during the war. Richland flows north from the Oconee River, putting Hill's farm in the contested borderland region. Between 1788 and 1793, the Creeks made numerous raids on his farm, stealing horses, cattle, and hogs. On at least one occasion, Capt. Hill and his son, Joseph L. Hill, tracked the Creeks across the Oconee River and "a considerable distance into the Indian Nation," but they failed to find the Creek raiders or their stolen livestock. During this period, Joseph L. Hill said that "there were considerable signs of Indians to be seen near the house & round the plantation."²

Capt. John Hill and his family persevered, and the Creek threat abated by about 1802 as increased white settlement pushed the frontier further westward. In the early 1790s, Capt. William Blanks, another Revolutionary War veteran, settled in Greene County, followed a few years later by a group of settlers from Orange County, North Carolina: John Riley and his brothers-in-law, Jacob Finley and James R. Gray.

Notes:

¹Haynes, Joshua S. Patrolling the Border: Theft and Violence on the Creek-George Frontier, 1770–1796. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2018.

²Georgia Archives, References Services, RG 4-2-46, Indian Depredation Claims, Joseph L. Hill, John Hill.