At the time of their move, Gwinnett County was still bordered to the northwest by Indian land.
Gwinnett County was actually created from frontier lands that had been ceded to the state by the Creek Indians.
GWINNETT COUNTY was established on Dec. 15, 1818. LAWRENCEVILLE was established in 1820. In 1829 Lawrenceville had forty dwellings, ten stores, ten machine shops, three law offices, three doctors, one academy, one Methodist church, one Baptist church and one Presbyterian church - Fairview Presbyterian Church, see below.
We do know from Philip’s will that he lived in lot 106 in the sixth district of Gwinnett County. I’m trying to obtain information to determine where that location would be today. I contacted the Fairview Presbyterian Church and they cannot verify if Philip is buried in their cemetery. There are a number of graves that are only marked by fieldstones.
It was organized in the summer of 1823 two and a half miles from Lawrenceville, for towns were considered less important and good agricultural lands were more highly esteemed. A choice wooded site was selected upon an eminence beside the highway and close to a good spring. A church building was erected before 1825, and remains in part till this day constructed of the original hewed timbers.
Long before Atlanta saw the light of day, when the Indians were still a menace and when farming was crude and laborious, the old hills of Gwinnett and adjoining counties resounded with the hum and bustle of sturdy and industrious men, bent on securing for themselves and their children those inalienable rights of civil and religious liberty, so gloriously contended for in the late War of the Revolution.
In the year 1823, a company of these men gathered together for the purpose of organizing a church. Perhaps I can best introduce them and their noble purposes to you by incorporating herein from the original session book, the record of organization and covenant assumed.
"The Presbyterian Church of Fairview, Gwinnett County, Georgia, was organized on the 9th of August, 1823 by the Rev.Remembrance Chamberlain. Thomas Beattie, Samuel Reid, and William Montgomery were set apart to the exercise of their office on the 28th of September, 1823, agreeable to our book of discipline. Thomas Beattie having been a Ruling Elder in the congregation of Goodhope, South Carolina."
Covenant
We, the subscribers, having been regularly admitted into the communion of the Presbyterian Church and being at the time free from its censures, and desiring to enjoy the privileges and discipline of a church as soon as possible, do hereby cheerfully and solemnly pledge ourselves to each other and to the great Head of the Church, to endeavor henceforth to walk in all the commandments of the Lord blameless and to obey such Elders in the Lord as may be duly appointed over us, and to place ourselves under the Hopewell Presbytery and to take all regular steps to be supplied with the regular ministrations of the Gospel of Christ. Pioneers: Thomas Beattie, M.Montgomery, Isabel Jackson, Samuel Reid, James M.Gresham,
Mary Reid, W.J.Russell, George M.Gresham, Margaret Beattie, James C.Reed, Catherine Montgomery,
MARY A. ISLEY, PHILLIP ISLEY.
Jordan and Mary Ann ISLEY Neese are enumerated in Atlanta Twp, DeKalb County, Georgia in 1850 and Gritter's Twp, Cobb County, Georgia in 1860. Jordan and Mary Ann are then enumerated in Boone's Station, Alamance County, North Carolina in 1870.
