Columbia County lies along the Savannah River in east central Georgia, bordering South Carolina, just northwest of Augusta. In the Colonial Era, the territory which constitutes Columbia County was a part of St. Paul's Parish, established in 1755. Just before and immediately after the Revolution, numerous Virginians and North Carolinians settled in the area. George Walton, the Virginia-born statesman who signed the Declaration of Independence, resided in what would become Columbia County, as did William Few and Abraham Baldwin. The primary areas of settlement were Wrightsboro (a Quaker settlement named for James Wright, the royal governor); and Brownsborough, which was near the present-day location of North Columbia Elementary School. Brownsborough was settled by Scots, mainly from northern Scotland and the Orkney Islands, brought over as indentured workers by Thomas "Burnfoot" Brown.
