Irwinville, Georgia

Irwinville, Georgia
Unincorporated Town
Tobacco Barn in Irwinville
Country	United States
State	Georgia
County	Irwin County
Population (2012)
• Total	2,434
Time zone	Eastern (EST) (UTC-5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
ZIP code	31783
Area code(s)	229

Irwinville is an unincorporated community in Irwin County, Georgia, United States.

Irwinville was founded as Irwinsville in 1831 as seat for the newly formed Irwin County. The community was named for Georgia governor Jared Irwin. It was renamed to Irwinville (without the S) when it was incorporated as a town in 1857. In 1907, the seat of Irwin County was transferred from Irwinville to Ocilla.

Irwinville is well known for its role in the American Civil War as the site of the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who was fleeing Union troops. Today, the site of his capture is marked by a monument as well as a museum and park.

It was also a part of the Works Progress Administration projects in the 1930s. A small water park originally called Crystal Lake (later changed to Crystal Beach) operated just outside there from the middle of the twentieth century to 1998.

In mid-February 1865, a group of Southern Unionists, a large number of residents, and deserters led by local miller Willis Jackson Bone assembled in Irwinville. Bone operated a mill on Bone Pond (now Crystal Lake) near the Alapaha River. The group passed a resolution declaring the county's return to the Union. A lieutenant of the local militia protested the action, but was knocked down with a musket by Bone. Three cheers for Abraham Lincoln followed. The assembly then took after the lieutenant and the enrolling officer Gideon Brown. They and other Confederate sympathizers were chased out of town and threatened with death if they should return. Willis Jackson Bone was hanged near his pond in late April 1865 after he killed a local justice of the peace named Jack Walker while Bone was bringing food to an escaped slave named Toney. Walker had tried to take Toney into custody.

A few months later, Irwinville became the site of the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Davis was on his way from the capital of the Confederacy at Richmond, Virginia to board a ship with his family and flee to safety in England, Davis stopped at a hotel in Irwinville owned by Doctor G.E. White on the evening of May 9, 1865. There he conversed and socialized with the locals and no one had suspected that they were in the presence of a man of such esteem. Davis and his family moved to an encampment beside a nearby creek bed only a couple of miles from the hotel after they were done talking with the citizens of Irwinville and sometime in the early morning of May 10, the encampment was alarmed by the sound of gunfire. Davis tried to escape towards the creek wearing an overcoat and his wife had tied her scarf around his shoulders, but members of the First Wisconsin and Fourth Michigan Cavalry Regiments captured him. He was taken to Fortress Monroe, Virginia and held for two years. J.B. Clements went on to claim in his book The History of Irwinville that had Davis revealed himself, the residents of Irwinville would have happily hid him from the pursuing Union troops.