The Michael Morris Healy Plantation in the red clay hills of the neighboring Byrds, Smiths, Powells, McKays and other families is now a sprawling, modern golf community near Macon, Georgia, with more than 600 families who call it home. River North bears little resemblance to the hog farms, cotton fields and pulpwood forest lands of yesterday, and its history is captured in this well-researched book by an award-winning author.

An early 1800s immigrant from Ireland, Michael Morris Healy became hugely successful in the business community and owned one of the largest plantations in Middle Georgia. He was a worldly, educated man who read voraciously but was somewhat shunned because he boldly violated Georgia’s customs and legal “black codes” regarding race. However, in doing so he opened a world of opportunities to his children, born to his black enslaved wife. The children rose from the farm on the hills above the Ocmulgee River, crossed the color line, and rose to prominence with amazing achievements in the pages of history.

This is the story of a land that was once home to the Creek Indians who were forcibly removed westward. It takes the reader through the pioneer and cotton plantation days -from virgin forest land, unspoiled by development – to what was advertised by its developer in the mid 1970s as “paradise.”

With interesting glimpses of the history of Macon and Bibb and Jones counties in Georgia, including the lost communities of Holton and Plentitude, this is River North.