Georgia Pioneers
Members Library

Wrightsboro Monthly Meeting (Quakers)
From Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of Quaker Genealogy



The Quaker colony in Wrightsborough was in Thomson, Georgia, formerly in Columbia County (and Richmond records), now located in McDuffie County. In 1767 Jonathan Sell and Joseph Maddock, members of the North Carolina Cane Creek Meeting applied for land grants in Georgia. As a result, some 12,000 acres were reserved for the Quakers upon the condition that at least ten families settled on the land by 1768.By February 1st, forty families settled in the new village of Wrightsboro. An additional grant was made in February of 1769 by Sir James Wright, Governor of Georgia.In fact so many settlers arrived in that first year that on December 6, 1768 Joseph Maddock, along with Jonathan Sell and Thomas Watson, asked for an additional grant.The following persons received land grants:

  1. Thomas Watson...........500 acres
  2. Joseph Maddock..........{300 acres
  3. Deborah Stubbs..........300 acres
  4. Thomas Jackson..........250 acres
  5. John Stubbs.............100 acres
  6. Jonathan Sell...........300 acres
  7. Joseph Mooney...........550 acres
  8. Ann Stubbs Widow........150 acres
  9. John Jones..............200 acres
  10. Francis Jones...........250 acres
  11. Isaac Low...............250 acres
  12. James Hart..............250 acres
  13. Thomas Hart.............200 acres
  14. Richard Jones...........150 acres
  15. Daniel McCarty..........400 acres
  16. Samuel Oliver...........250 acres
  17. Richard Moore...........100 acres
  18. Thomas Omaley...........200 acres
  19. Thomas Linn.............250 acres
  20. Robert McClen...........300 acres
  21. James Morrow............350 acres
  22. Peter Perkins...........500 acres
  23. John Oliver.............350 acres
  24. Henry Ashfield..........350 acres
  25. William Elam............250 acres
  26. Absolom Jackson.........200 acres
  27. John Slater.............400 acres
  28. Joseph Hollingsworth....100 acres
  29. John Whitsit............200 acres
  30. John Whitsit Jr.........250 acres
  31. Stephen Day.............200 acres
  32. James Emmett............200 acres
  33. Hugh Tinnen.............200 acres
  34. Cornelius Cochran.......300 acres
  35. Isaac Vernon............350 acres
  36. John Sidwell............300 acres
  37. Amos Vernon.............200 acres
  38. George Morrow...........300 acres
  39. Oliver Matthews.........250 acres
  40. John Perry..............250 acres

      Friendsborough 1776 to 1777

      Friendsborough was a Quaker village settled by William Manson. It was part of the Wrightsboro settlement. Manson wa born May 27, 1744 in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands at the northern tip of the Scottish mainland. During December of 1772 he began an adventure as a captain in Philadelphia when he took command of a 440-ton vessel called Arundel which was owned by Quaker merchants, Thomas Horne and John Kemp of London. The first voyage was to Leghorn, Italy. In July of 1773 the ship with its cargo was anchored at Dover. From there, Manson wrote to his parents about his ship and backsliding Christians and explained that the Arundel would complete its trip to the Baltic, then sail for the port of London. From there, Mason would take a shipment of goods to the merchant houses of Savannah, Georgia, and then bring on a cargo of rice for the Carribbean. The ship arrived in Savannah during early December of 1774. He was acquainted with Sir James Wright (the Royal Governor) who had recently purchased over one million acres of land in Georgia on the Creek and Cherokee frontier. In the book, Quaker Records of Georgia: Wrightsboro 1772-1793. Friendsborough 1776-1777, an Account Current Book of William Manson and Co., Friendsborough, 1776-1777, was included. These accounts are located in the Orkney Library, Kirkwall, Orkney, and consist of business items involving persons in the Friendsborough settlement. examples of Manson Accounts