Warren County was created by an act of the legislature on December 19, 1793, from parts of Richmond, Columbia, and Wilkes counties as Georgia's sixteenth county, and later parts of it were used to create Glascock County and parts of Jefferson, McDuffie, and Taliaferro counties. The area's first inhabitants were Creek Indians, who established the Upper Trading Path between Augusta and Creek settlements far west as the Mississippi River, and the first white settlers were men who received grants from King George III of England. While Georgia was still an English colony, the area that became Warren County was part of St. Paul's Parish. Warrenton, the county seat, was incorporated in 1810, and the other incorporated towns are Camak and Norwood. Railroad service came relatively early: James Camak of Athens led associates to charter the Georgia Railroad in 1833 and build a line just north of Warrenton in the 1830s, where a depot evolved into the town of Camak, while the link between Warrenton and Camak was made by mule-car, giving the county seat the nickname "Muletown." Although the Civil War brought efforts to replace the mule-car with true rail, that was not accomplished until 1873. Norwood developed around a gristmill owned by Radford Gunn and was known as Gunn's Mill until 1888; after the Georgia Railroad laid tracks through the town, it bustled with business activity in its early days. In 1868, the first rural, free mail delivery occurred in Norwood, when six residents hired Jerry Parsons, an African-American, to deliver their mail daily in exchange for food and clothing. Beall Springs grew up around a mineral springs used by Native Americans long before the state acquired the land in 1773, and after the Beall family became the first white settlers to own the surrounding land, they allowed the public to continue using the water. In the nineteenth century, Beall Springs became a popular resort with a hotel and leisure activities, and visitors included Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens and U.S. senator Robert Toombs. In 1864, William T. Sherman's troops arrived at the Woolen Mills at Jewel on the Ogeechee River intending to burn it, but after seeing the sign of the Masonic order cut into a rock forming the chimney and learning that Mr. Jewel belonged to the order, a captain ordered his men to leave the mill intact. Warren County's first courthouse was allegedly erected in 1809 and served for a century until fire destroyed it; the present courthouse was built about 1910 in the Neoclassical Revival style and was designed by Walter Chamberlain. The county was named for Joseph Warren, the physician and American patriot from Roxbury, Massachusetts, who became a leader of the anti-British party after the Stamp Act of 1765, helped draft the Suffolk Resolves in 1774, served in the first three provincial congresses of Massachusetts, was president of the third, belonged to the Committee of Public Safety, served as Grand Master of Freemasons for North America, became a major general on June 14, 1775, and was killed three days later at the Battle of Bunker Hill. In 1907, a Confederate monument was erected on the town square to honor Warren County men who served in the War Between the States, funded by lunches prepared and sold by the ladies of the Matron's Club, many of them widows of the war.