The Seven Islands Road in Jasper County

Long before Georgia had highways, the Seven Islands Road carried traders, settlers and stagecoaches west across the Piedmont. It began as an Indian trading path and took its name from a cluster of seven islands in the Ocmulgee River along the western edge of today’s Jasper County.

• Began asPart of the Oakfuskee, or Upper Creek, Trading Path
• Named forThe seven islands in the Ocmulgee River
• RoutePark’s Mill on the Oconee to the Ocmulgee, then west
• TodayRural roads and markers in Morgan and Jasper counties

From Trading Path to Stagecoach Road

According to the Georgia Historical Society’s marker, the Seven Islands Road was originally a link in the Oakfuskee, or Upper Creek, Trading Path and became a wagon road long before the Creek Nation was forced out of Georgia. As a trail it crossed the Oconee and Apalachee rivers near what is now Swords. After Park’s bridge opened across the Oconee around 1807, the road began on the Oconee’s west bank and ran to the Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee.

It became a major emigrant route. Travelers from northeast Georgia and the upper Carolinas followed it to the Mississippi Territory, Louisiana and later Texas. Beyond the Seven Islands the road ran west by way of Indian Springs, where it became the Alabama Road, continuing past Marshall’s Ferry on the Flint to present-day Columbus and across the Chattahoochee to join the Federal Road in Alabama.

Stagecoaches from Augusta, Washington and Greensboro crossed the Oconee at Park’s Mill, where a toll bridge stood. From there one fork led to Eatonton, Milledgeville and Macon, and the other, the Seven Islands Road, to Madison, Monticello, Indian Springs and beyond. Two of the road’s stagecoach stations were in what is now Jasper County.

Seven Islands on the Ocmulgee

The river crossing grew into an industrial settlement. Cotton mills at Seven Islands ran until cotton lost its hold on Georgia’s economy, and the last abandoned mill buildings were torn down in the 1980s. During the March to the Sea, Union troops laid pontoon bridges across the Ocmulgee at Planter’s Factory near Seven Islands and crossed into Jasper County between November 17 and 20, 1864.

Following the Road Today