Rev. Zachariah Herndon GORDON

  General Notes:

In 1810 when his father died, he was left in charge of the family estate, as his older brothers, Wiley and Charles P., were away at Dickinson College at Carlisle, PA. He was only fourteen at the time. When he was nineteen, in 1815, he moved to Jones Co., GA where he lived for two years. There he and his first cousin, Rev. Jacob King, were baptized by the Rev. John M. Gray. In 1819, he moved to Eatonton, Putnam Co., GA where he met Jesse Mercer, founder of the Baptist university that bears his name. When Zachariah was twenty-nine. he received a license to preach, and a year later, he was ordained by a presbytery composed of Rev. John Hambrick and Henry Hooton. By this time he was living in Upson Co., GA. For fourteen years he served that church and three others--the four being located, one each, in the counties of Upson, Talbot, Pike, and Houston.

Although successful in Upson Co., Zachariah and family moved to Walker Co., Ga. around 1840. He settled on property about ten miles from Lafayette on property he named Gordon Springs because of the great abundance of mineral water that flowed from twelve main springs in the space of a quarter of an acre. He took advantage of their medicinal value by building a large hotel that served as a summer resort, and in the decade preceding the Civil War, it became one of the "most fashionable watering placed in Georgia." Ironically, it was in the peaceful fields and valleys surround the Gordon homestead in northwestern Georgia that the Battle of Chickamauga - one of the Cilvil War's bloodiest struggles - would later rage.

Zachariah married Melinda COX on 20 Apr 1826. (Melinda COX was born about 1805 in Talbot Co., GA.)