HIGH TOWER STORY LINE
Opening   James Perry   Lewis Perry   Antebellum Forsyth   A Yeoman's World  War

For 300 years, since the travels of Hernado de Soto, white Europeans and later Americans searched in vain for gold in the hills of north Georgia and Tennessee. In 1828, the quest was realized and the nation's first major gold rush commenced. The discovery of gold in the Cherokee nation overwhelmed the area with white prospectors - some say as many as 25,000. The state of Georgia quickly annexed the land and after a series of questionable deals with the Cherokees distributed the land by lottery in 1832. Lewis Perry moved to Lumpkin County in the geographic heart of the gold rush after the land lottery sometime between 1834 and 1840. We do not know why Perry moved to Lumpkin County, but suspect it was related to the Gold rush. We do know he did not stay long in Lumpkin County. In 1850 Lewis Perry and his wife Martha live in High Tower, just 5 miles from the Lumpkin / Forsyth border.

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