A Brief History of the Pear Tree Farm, Godfrey, Georgia

The house at Pear Tree Farm is a stately two-story plantation plain house standing on a hill top facing the Seven Islands Road outside of Godfrey, Georgia. Now owned by Mr. Galen Kilburn, Jr., it was the homeplace of the Kilpatrick family for almost 100 years. Mr. Kilburn bought the property in 1987 and contacted Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc. with the request that a brief historical study be made of the site. The goal of the project was to examine available historical data and prepare a brief history on the Pear Tree Farm house and its early occupants. Because of contractual disagreements with Mr. Kilburn, the research project was not fully completed. This report has been produced by Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc. in an effort to distribute the information we gathered on Peat Tree Farm. The property is situated on a large ridge system separating Little River and Big Indian Creeks in southern Morgan County (Figure 1). The house rests on land lot 230 of the 15th district of Morgan County. The Pear Tree Farm property is part of the Big Indian Creek watershed. Big Indian Creek flows in a generally southern direction and joins Little River several miles south of the study area in Putnam County. The historical research for this project involved several avenues of pursuit. The principal source were County records in the courthouse in Madison. The special Collections and the Georgia Room at the University of Georgia's Main Library were searched for histories, articles, early maps, and other pertinent materials. The census materials for the years 1820 through 1880 were examined on microfilm at the University of Georgia's Main Library. Finally, family members and other people knowledgeable of the study area were interviewed. Several problems with the source material were encountered. An examination of deed records in Georgia must always be tempered with the knowledge that there was no state law requiring that deed transactions be recorded. This sometimes makes it impossible to conduct a complete title search. Although the Morgan County courthouse has not burned and the records there are mostly complete, there are some volumes (i.e., tax digests, probate inventories, etc.) missing. Census records can be useful, although the quality of the census varies from census to census; some handwriting is nearly impossible to read because of poor penmanship or faded pages. Not all the census schedules (population, agricultural, slave, and manufacturing) are available. There are no censuses earlier than 1820 at the University of Georgia. The 1870 census is reputed to be one of the worst ever taken, particularly in the South (Scott 1978:212; Thomdale and Dollarhide 1987:xiv). These problems are attributed to the disorganization and confusion following the Civil War. The 1890 census is unavailable because most of it was destroyed in a 1921 fire at the Commerce Department. The 1900 agricultural and industrial schedules were destroyed at the decree of Congress (Scott 1978:211). Finally, the scope of this project is such that not every avenue of pursuit could be taken. There are many questions still unanswered. This is always the case with history and it is doubtful that some of these questions could ever be answered with the available historical records. The following is a brief history of the known and possible occupants of the Kilpatrick house. Data collected from examining various source materials are presented in a more detailed form in the appendices at the end of this report. These include county deeds, tax digests, and Federal census records.