Seven Islands Road

The Seven Islands - Alabama Road - was an important emigrant route to the west. Travelers from northeast Georgia and the upper Carolinas followed this trace to the Mississippi Territory, Louisiana, and later Texas. Originally an important link in the Oakfuskee or Upper Creek Trading Path, the Seven Islands Road became a wagon road long before the Creeks were expelled from Georgia. As an Indian trail, the Seven Islands path, crossed both the Oconee and Apalachee rivers at what is now Swords, Ga. When Park's bridge was opened about 1807 some eight miles from here, however, the trace began there on the west bank of the Oconee and ran to the Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee. Beyond the Seven Islands, the road traveled westward via Indian Springs, where it became the Alabama Road. The Alabama Road ran past Marshall's Ferry on the Flint to what is now Columbus and crossed the Chattahoochee at Kennard's Ferry to join the Federal Road a few miles west of Fort Mitchell, Ala.