While references in print to the "Macon Bar Association" reach back into the middle of the nineteenth century, association records are almost non-existent.
Newspaper accounts have the Judge of Bibb Superior Court presiding over meetings of the association in early decades, but he was never referred to as president. When the Judge was not present, some lawyer was "called to the chair" by vote, on an ad hoc basis. He was referred to as chairman.
Notice of Bar meetings was given in the classified ad section the local newspaper. The first lawyer so far discovered to have signed such an ad as `President of the Macon Bar Association" was John Rutherford, in 1877. Mr. Rutherford was for many years one of the most prominent Macon attorneys, but he is best remembered as lead counsel for the defense in the Woolfolk murder trials.
Unless other evidence comes to light, John Rutherford should be considered the first president of the Macon Bar. No one else signed himself as "president" until Isaac Hardeman did so in 1895.
-- Frank M. McKenney