In 1850, Andrew Benjamin Tarbutton enslaved 25 people in central Georgia. A year later, he purchased more than a dozen additional people off the docks in Savannah and marched them toward his home, setting the foundation for his family’s generational wealth.
Four generations later, a railroad company owned by one of his descendants is using eminent domain to seize land of poor farmers, including descendants of enslaved people, not too far from where his family’s fortunes started.
In 2024, the Georgia Public Service Commission granted the Tarbutton-owned Sandersville Railroad Co. eminent domain authority, allowing it to seize private property for what they claim is a public use: to build a rail spur to haul gravel from a local quarry.
The landowners filed a petition for judicial review of the PSC’s decision in Fulton County Superior Court. That appeal has been moving through the courts for the past two years. In February 2025, the Fulton County Superior Court affirmed the PSC’s decision but kept a pause on construction in place while the case proceeded toward further review in the Georgia Court of Appeals.
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