Cobb County History for Genealogists
Cobb County was formed in 1832 from Cherokee County and named in honor of Thomas Willis Cobb, U.S. representative, U.S. Senator and Supreme Court Judge who subsequently named the
the city of Marietta after his wife. For a number of years white traders settlers encroached on Indian lands. Upon the signing of the 1832 Treaty to remove the Cherokees,
settlers flooded the territory. The Cherokees were farmers and not surprisingly, not all Cherokees emigrated to Oklahoma and Kansas. Some of them obtained permission to remain in Cobb County which is reflected in the Dawes Rolls when people from Cobb, Forsyth, Lumpkin and Gilmer Counties
made application before the Dawes Commission to prove Indian ancestry. Such proof was necessary in order to obtain free land in Oklahoma.
Indian trails ran from the Alabama Road North through Bartow County and across the "Shallow Ford" in the Chattahoochee.
Map of Trails
The Second Georgia Land Lottery of 1832 parceled out land to settlement and the first towns of Marietta, Sweet Water, Buffalo Fish and Big Shanty.
Big Shanty is remembered for sheltering Atlantans during the Battle of Atlanta which made the mad rush by railroad before General Sherman took the city.
The railroad started its construction in 1836 when the State of Georgia began purchasing the right-of-way to build from the Tennessee River to the Chattahoochee River. In 1845
track was laid from Marthasville to Marietta with a stop over for water at Moon's Station in Kennesaw.
Earliest settlers were: Cloud, Lemon, Collins, Guess, King, etc.
During the War Between the States the earliest court house records were torched by Sherman. The earliest surviving Will Book is 1866-1904,
which images are available to subscribers of
Georgia Pioneers. Also abstracted are Miscellaneous Estate records found in Minute Books dating from 1869 to 1873 and the
Legal Advertising from the Marietta Daily Journal dating from 1868 to 1873.
