 Early European settlers were primarily Highland Scots Methodist or Primitive Baptist, representing two socio-economic classes, "Jeffersonian yeomen" and a "squirearchy," two distinct divisions of landed farmers created by the Georgia Land Lottery of 1820.Between 1820 and 1840, agriculture was principally sheep and cattle herding.With the advent of railroad expansion in the 1830s a sizeable population of Irish Catholic laborers settled in and around the lower Alapaha River, eventually leading to the establishment of St. Anne's Catholic church there.