Parkertown was founded in 1832 in what was then Franklin County, now Hart County, by Joseph A. Parker, who was born in Virginia in 1774 and moved to Elbert County, Georgia, in 1796. He later moved to Big Shoal Creek, where Jacob Parker and Co., founded by his sons, built what is said to have been the first woolen mill in Georgia on the upper shoal. At the lower shoal they constructed a dam and a flour and grist mill together with a cotton gin and a thresher.