In September 1833, Murray County's first court session was held in Spring Place. Likely, private homes, churches, or other structures served as courtrooms, as there is no record of a real courthouse in the county's early years. On Dec. 27, 1842, the legislature authorized the county to levy a special tax to fund construction of a courthouse -- but it is not known if county officials implemented the law. Murray County's first known courthouse was a two-story brick structure built in Spring Place in 1886. Chatsworth was designated county seat in 1913, and three years later work began there on a new two-story brick courthouse that continues in use today. After county government moved to Chatsworth in 1917, the old Spring Place courthouse became a school house.
County History: Murray County was created from Cherokee County on Dec. 3, 1832 by an act of the General Assembly (Ga. Laws 1832, p. 56). [Click here for complete text of legislation.] According to the 1832 act :
. . . such parts of the twenty-seventh, twenty-sixth, twenty-fifth and twenty-fourth districts of the second section, as lie west of the lines herein-before designated, and the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth districts of the third section, and the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth districts of the fourth section, shall form and become one county, to be called Murray.
In way of background, by 1830, the Cherokee Nation consisted of most of northwest Georgia (see map), plus adjoining areas in Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Even while Cherokee Indians remained on their homeland in Georgia, the General Assembly on Dec. 21, 1830 enacted legislation claiming "all the Territory within the limits of Georgia, and now in the occupancy of the Cherokee tribe of Indians; and all other unlocated lands within the limits of this State, claimed as Creek land" (Ga. Laws 1830, p. 127). The act also provided for surveying the Cherokee lands in Georgia; dividing them into sections, districts, and land lots; and authorizing a lottery to distribute the land. On Dec. 26, 1831, the legislature designated all land in Georgia that lay west of the Chattahoochee River and north of Carroll county as "Cherokee County" (see map) and provided for its organization (Ga. Laws 1831, p. 74). However, the new county was not able to function as a county because of its size and the fact that Cherokee Indians still occupied portions of the land. On Dec. 3, 1832, the legislature added areas of Habersham and Hall counties to Cherokee County, and then divided the entire area into nine new counties -- Cass (later renamed Bartow), Cobb, Floyd, Forsyth, Gilmer, Lumpkin, Murray, Paulding, and Union -- plus a reconstituted and much smaller Cherokee County.
According to its original boundaries, Murray County comprised the entire northwest corner of Georgia (see map). Later created entirely from Murray County were Walker County (1833), Dade County (1837), and Whitfield County (1851).
Georgia's 86th county was named for lawyer and legislator Thomas W. Murray (1790-1832) of Lincoln County. Murray, who served as Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives in 1825, was a candidate for Congress at the time of his death in 1832.
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