Hart County was created by the Legislature on December 7, 1853, from portions of Franklin and Elbert counties. It is the only county in Georgia named for a woman, Nancy Hart. In colonial days Nancy Hart and her husband, Benjamin Hart, obtained a 400 acre grant 25 miles southeast from Hartwell and erected a log cabin home. During the Revolutionary War, six Tories forced their way into the Hart home and demanded that Nancy cook a meal for them. While cooking an old turkey, she sent her daughter to the spring to blow a conch shell for help. When she was detected slipping the third Tory rifle through a crack in the wall, Nancy killed one of the Tories and wounded another. Hart and several neighbors came to her rescue and wanted to shoot the five surviving Tories, but Nancy insisted that they be hanged, and they were. Tradition also holds that Nancy Hart served as a spy for Gen. Elijah Clarke, sometimes disguised as a man. The Indians respectfully called her "War Woman," and gave that name to a creek beside her cabin, later memorialized in a state park on State Highway Route 17. Hart County's first officers, elected in February, 1854, were Inferior Court Justices Henry F. Chandler, Micajah Carter, Clayton S. Webb, Daniel M. Johnson, and James V. Richardson; Interior Court Clerk Frederic C. Stephenson; Ordinary James T. Jones; Superior Court Clerk Burrell Mitchell; Sheriff William Myers; Tax Receiver W.C. Davis; Tax Collector Richard Shirley; Surveyor John A. Cameron; Coroner Richmond Skelton; and Treasurer Samuel White.