The Social Network Along Sweetwater Creek

Think back to the street you grew up on.  If you grew up before the 1980s I'm thinking you would be able to tell me the name of each every family that lived along your street and possibly tell me some intricate details regarding what the inside of each house looked like down to the design of the kitchen counters.

Young people who have grown up from the mid 80s to the present have a harder time doing this because most people...even those who live in traditional subdivisions....no longer know their neighbors to the extent people did in the past.

Close-knit neighbors are a rarity...They do occur, but it's not the norm any more.  

It would seem that during the 1800s it would have been difficult for folks to know their neighbors.  

In a world where transportation consisted of your feet or a horse...in a world where receiving a letter was an "event"...in a world with no telephone....in a world where neighbors were several hundred  acres apart or even miles down the road....it just seems impossible a close-knit community could be formed.

Yet my research indicates folks had no problem interacting with their neighbors, getting around, forming business partnerships, or finding folks to marry.....

Take for example an Atlanta Constitution article from May 4, 1882 titled "Sweetwater Scenes"...an article that was supplied to the Constitution more than likely by Charles O. Peavey, the editor of the Weekly Star, Douglasville's paper at the time.  

This particular article is interesting in that it paints a picture for us regarding property owners along Sweetwater Creek during the early 1880s.   It's almost as if we are on a tour floating down the creek and a tour guide is giving us information regarding the various property owners along the route.

The text of the actual article is in italics.  I've added additional information in regular type.  

After watching several years the cars have made their appearance in our county.   They moved across the Sweetwater Creek last Wednesday and moved into Douglas County last Friday, on the Georgia Pacific railroad, two and half miles west of the Sweetwater Creek.  New life seems to take hold of our people at once.

As I explained in an earlier post titled How the Railroad Built Our Town work to build a rail line out of Atlanta heading west had begun in the 1850s before the Civil War, but problems and a bit of apathy plagued the project.  Numerous attempts were made in the 1870s to revive the interest in the railroad but the cleared right-of-way just sat idle for many years.

Once the process had begun to set the tracks citizens understood the huge significance to the surrounding area and the papers reported new details of the railroad's process every day.  

Sweetwater Creek is one of the best streams in any section of this state for mills and factories.

It's very obvious the tone of the article reads not only as a road map regarding the property owners along Sweetwater Creek, but as an advertisement for others to come to the area to make their home and to build their businesses.

Coming from your city to Douglasville by the Tallapoosa Road you will enter Douglas County at Love's Bridge, and you will pass through the farm of Colonel D.K. Love, which has been in cultivation many years.  Indeed no small part of it was cultivated by the Indians.

Of course the Tallapoosa Road was the forerunner of Bankhead Highway today.

Colonel D.K. Love was David Kolb Love (1844-1892) who was born in Campbell County.  He married Margaret Catherine Baker in December, 1861.  She was the daughter of Absolum Baker (1811-1876) who ran the ferry....Baker's Ferry.....that crossed the Chattahoochee River close to where Six Flags happens to be today.

You rarely see a tree or stump on the plantation and the land is still good and produces well.  

Love operated a gin and grist mill along Sweetwater Creek at Salt Springs in the 1870s.   During the 1880s when this newspaper article was written....he also had a mill and fertilizer store at Salt Springs with his brother, Charles B. Love (1847-1911).

Back of the residence of Colonel Love in a pine orchard old Sweetwater, the chief of the Cherokee Indians, is buried.  Sweetwater Creek takes it's name from him. 

Near the grave of this Indian during the war a [Confederate soldier] stood and shot down a Yankee by the side of General Kilpatrick on the opposite side of the creek.   The headquarters of Kilpatrick, on the farm of Colonel Love, were also the headquarters of Sweetwater.

This page gives a good idea regarding the situation with Union troop movements around Salt Springs during October, 1864.

The next farm you pass is that of Judge J.C. Bowden, which is a splendid place, containing several hundred acres.

I've written about Judge Bowden before here.  Originally, I used information obtained from one of his great granddaughters stating he owned 5,500 acres, but as this article states it was more than likely several hundred acres.

On this place you will find the Salt Springs.  You can take the water and boil it down to salt.  The mine has never been worked to any extent.   Denmead and Johnstone leased it and worked it a short time during the war, but were driven off by the enemy before they had worked it to any extent.  

It is thought there is a good salt mine here.

This article was written prior to any of the water from the springs being bottled or sold and prior to the fabulous hotel and Chautauqua grounds being built.  The book On the Threshold of Freedom:  Masters and Slaves in Civil War Georgia by Clarence L. Mohr confirms Denmead and Johnstone leased the property during the war (1862) with a labor supply comprised of slaves.

The next place is the farm of H.P. Howell....or Humphrey Posey Howell (1819-1891) who partnered with D.K. Love with the gin and mill.   The article states...On this place Mr. Howell and Colonel Love have a cane mill and cotton gin and a supply of water power enough to run four times the machinery they have.  

Howell's Find-A-Grave entry tells of the tragic death of Lula Howell, his fifteen year old daughter in 1883.  

The next place, going south is the farm of J.A. Watson....James Anthony Watson....He has just purchased this place containing one thousand acres on both sides of Sweetwater Creek and from the way he moves things around, it appears he will make as good a farmer as he does a merchant.   He has 500 acres sown in oats, which are looking fine.

Records indicate Watson operated a dry goods store in Atlanta from 1870-1896 at 20 Mitchell Street.  During the 1880s he also had a store in Salt Springs, and in 1894 he served as the major and later a councilman at the springs.  

Watson is best known for partnering with E.W. Marsh, S.M. Inman, Henry W. Grady and several others in the development of the Piedmont Chatauqua, and he's responsible for the Sweetwater Park Hotel.

Going on down Sweetwater you pass the splendid farms of Cooper, White and Columbus Blair, who has one of the best places in our country and is one of our most successful farmers.  

I'm still researching the names Cooper and White, but Columbus Blair (1836-1901) was a state representative for Douglas County in 1895.   His children include Judge Daniel Webster Blair of Marietta an Ruth Blair, director of the Georgia Department of Archives and History and Georgia historian for many years.

After leaving  Blair's, the next place is the farm of Angus Ferguson.  On this place the shoals properly begin.

Mr. Ferguson owns a fine mill on this place and water power to run a large factory.  

Ferguson moved here from North Carolina and set up a mill at Factory Shoals that was operational during the Civil War.   While the New Manchester mill was destroyed there are conflicting stories in the research that Ferguson's mill was not touched.   Ferguson is an interesting man, and I continue to collect information regarding his life and property.  I hope to be able to devote a full column to him soon.  His grave lies within the boundaries of Sweetwater  Creek State Park.

One mile below this mill is the site of the New Manchester factory.  This factory was owned principally by ex-governor Charles J. McDonald and was in successful operation up to and during the war, until a few weeks before Atlanta was taken and burnt by order of General Sherman, which was a great loss to this section of the country.  The old brick walls are still standing.

The property has been sold and is now owned by A.C. McIntosh of Powder Springs and S.N. Dorsett of Douglasville and is for sale.

Dorsett was very involved with business and politics in Douglasville.  He served as the first Clerk of the Superior Court and....I will be writing about his interesting relationship with A.C. McIntosh very soon.

From this place to Aderhold's Ferry there is 190 feet of falls and water plenty to run six or seven factories as the old New Manchester factory.  This is a field for persons wishing to run cotton mills by water power.  

This is good country for capitalism.  It is undeveloped.  About two-thirds of our land is original forests.   With railroad facilities we are bound to prosper.  Land is cheap and plenty for sale.

Aderhold's Ferry was located where Riverside Parkway cross Sweetwater Creek.   

Getting back to my original thoughts....we like to think about how advanced we are today with various communication devices, various forms of media outlets streaming news twenty-four hours a day...yet, the people who lived along Sweetwater Creek in 1882 seemed to have a great social network themselves.

The folks along the Sweetwater corridor supported one another, went into business together, married into each other's families, and formed a thriving community yet they did it in a very simple way.

I have to wonder....we may be advanced technologically, but are we any further along socially?

The pictures with this post were taken along Sweetwater Creek by Mike Shirley, a longtime Douglas County resident.  You can find MIke's blog, "Dinner Table Stories"  here.

Chatauqua Grounds - Site of the Barbecue Fiasco

I woke up Saturday morning with history on my mind - Lithia Springs history to be exact. I realize there is more than enough history in Douglasville proper to keep me on topic for quite some time with this column, but a factoid I had uncovered  during my research had pushed my interest button. The item I had come across advised during the summer of 1888 close to 30,000 people were pouring into Douglas County  from Atlanta and from points unknown via the railroad.

Think about that for a moment because 30,000 people were a large group coming in and out of our county every day with a purpose other than aiming to take up permanent residence.

30,000.

Daily.

Wow! Was Douglas County hosting the Olympics?

Well, it was something similar for the time period. They were here for the Piedmont Chautauqua.

Now when I first began my general research a few weeks ago I kept running across the word "Chautauqua" and figured it had something to do with Native Americans because the texts would refer to the Chautauqua Grounds. I assumed the texts were referring to hunting grounds or fighting grounds between the Cherokees and Creeks. Once resource I accessed had to do with Camp Hobson. I wrote about it here. The source stated: The Chautauqua grounds were about 1 1/4 miles west of the springs after which the town was named. This is approximately the intersection of Bankhead Highway and Baker Drive. The Chautauqua Grounds were west of Marsh Avenue.

Have you ever heard the old adage about assuming? I was wrong.

The Chautauqua had nothing to do with Native Americans or fighting. The purpose was education on a grand scale.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries people were hungry for cultural and educational opportunities. The Chautauqua caught on because the events included a mixture of instruction with play. Take the atmosphere of the fair and mix in speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers and preachers for a period lasting three to seven days mix it in with a few fireworks and you get the idea.

It's so easy today for us to hop on the Internet and visit the website for the Smithsonian or the National Gallery of Art. We can hop in the car and travel to Atlanta to see Cirque de Soleil at Atlantic Station or see a Broadway show at the Fox Theater. Here in Douglasville we have the Cultural Arts Center and the Old Courthouse Museum.  We can learn anything we want by accessing it on the Internet including college courses or by purchasing software.

For folks who lived in rural America there just wasn't an opportunity for them until the Chautauqua movement took hold across our country. The main focus was education for adults. The first Chautauqua was organized by a Methodist minister in 1874 in upstate New York as a way to provide educational training for Sunday school teachers. Other enterprising people latched onto his idea because he mixed in an outdoor setting as his venue, and put a new twist on learning. He made it fun.

The idea was copied over and over as daughter Chautauquas sprang up all over the United States. Each Chautauqua lasted for three to seven days, and each day a different headliner would perform or speak. A whole industry sprang up around the Chautauquas in order to provide the entertainment and speakers for such events similar to today's talent agencies or speaker's bureaus. President Theodore Roosevelt said, "The most American thing in America was the Chautauqua."

Several years later during World War I, President Woodrow Wilson advised the Chautauqua was "an integral part of national defense." The Chautauqua movement had its heyday in the 1920s and had tapered off by the late 1940s with the widespread use of radio and with television soon hitting the scene.

The Piedmont Chautauqua held in Lithia Springs, Georgia was the brainchild of Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution and promoter of the New South following Reconstruction. Some Chautauquas across the county were on a circuit. They would breeze into small towns, set up tents, educate and entertain the people and then move on to the next town. Grady wanted the Piedmont Chautauqua to be different. He wanted it large and lavish. He wanted it permanent. He even wanted people to be able to buy or rent cottages on the grounds, so a few would have a permanent Chautauqua lodging spot though there were several large hotels in the area. I have been told that the streets behind today’s Wyatt Pharmacy in downtown Lithia Springs–Marsh Avenue, Miller Way and Kiser Avenue –are all streets that led to the area where lots were sold for cottages.

Grady chose the location of Salt Springs, Georgia because it had railroad access, it wasn’t too far from Atlanta, and the area was already established as a resort town with the magnificent Sweetwater Park Hotel. You can view the magnificent structure here or here.

It’s amazing to think such a place was right here in Douglas County–in little Lithia Springs–being visited by the likes of Presidents McKinley, Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. Members of the Astor, Vanderbilt, and Whitney families visited the hotel for the curative waters and spa treatments. They would travel in their own rail cars and then use the hotel's dummy line to reach the springs.

The Sweetwater Park Hotel property was the perfect spot for Henry W. Grady’s Chautauqua plans because if his “New South” ideals. Douglasville was a fine example of a postbellum “New South” town leaving old ways behind and attempting to embrace industry and commercial business.  Douglasville’s businessmen, professionals and politicians all adhered to Grady’s “New South” ideals.

Henry W. Grady was already friends with several of the movers and shakers in Douglasville and worked with them directly to get the project off the ground including Thomas R. Whitley, John B. Duncan, and Charles O. Peavey (see article here), editor of the Weekly Star, Douglasville’s newspaper at the time.   Joseph S. James, Douglasville’s first mayor among many other positions he held over his lifetime, was an investor along with Grady’s partner, Marion C. Kiser, a Fulton County Commissioner. Grady hired an architect and landscaper–L.B. Wheeler and Joseph Forsyth Johnston respectively–to get busy designing and building the Chautauqua grounds.

Take a look at what they came up with here.   What a wonderful structure for education and entertainment and right here in Douglas County!  The Lithia water site advises:The  Chautauqua buildings were built after the Moorish style, with plain wings and towers and minarets clustering to the center.  The Tabernacle seated seven thousand people and was located in an immense grove with exquisite gardens and lawns, rose mounds, and a reflecting lake.

In the days leading up the Piedmont Chautauqua the papers heightened anticipation regarding the Chautauqua by giving a daily progress update. Fannie Mae Davis recounted in her book, Douglas County, Georgia: from Indian Trail to I-20, a June 15 headline read, “ONLY 25,032 MINUTES REMAINING INCLUDING NIGHTS.” To celebrate some of the progress made by the end of June Chautauqua organizers decided to sell tickets to a barbeque meal where the proceeds would benefit the Confederate Veterans Home. The event was advertised far and wide and even made the Atlanta paper. The food was prepared including 30 kids, 10 young calves, 12 sheep, 300 pounds of butter, 50 dozen lemons, 200 ears of corn and 20 bushels of tomatoes. What the promoters didn’t anticipate was the timing it took to have that amount of food cooked when people showed up. They also forgot  the fence surrounding the grounds had not been finished.  It was estimated approximately 3,000 non-ticket holders managed to get on the grounds. Chaos ensued when there wasn’t enough food to serve everyone. The newspapers advised the Piedmont Chautauqua had its first and its last barbeque!

The barbeque fiasco was just a little set back. The Piedmont Chautauqua opened in fine style.  The Lithia Springs Mineral Water site advises:  [Henry W. Grady] went to great lengths to secure twenty-one eminent professors from such schools as Yale, Harvard, Princeton, John Hopkins, Vanderbilt, and the University of Virginia. The Summer College offered courses in English Language and Literature, German Language and Literature, French Language and Literature, …Latin and Greek, Physics, Botany, Chemistry, History and Pedagogies, New Testament, Arabic, Assyrian, and Hebrew Language and Literature.  The Assembly Schools included Physical Culture, Decorative Arts, Fine Arts, Elocution and Music.  In keeping with the Chautauqua program, a two-day program offered “Sunday school days” for workers and children.

Grady had intended to hire several well known writers of the time including Atlanta’s own Joel Chandler Harris aka Uncle Remus to perform readings of their works at the Chautauqua, but from a list of six famous authors he was only able to secure one–Thomas Nelson Page. The Atlanta Constitution for August 2, 1888 stated: Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, the famous southern author, arrived in Atlanta yesterday morning.  He spent the day in visiting points of interest about the city with Mr. Clarence Knowles [an Atlanta politician], and last evening went to Chautauqua.  Tonight he will give readings from his works. Page ended up reading from his "Unc' Edinburg's Drowndin" to the delight of those in attendance.

The Lithia Springs Water site further advises:  The Piedmont Chautauqua formally opened on Sunday, July 8, 1888, with sermons by three famous preachers and an illumination by ten thousand colored lights.The Eighth Calvary Regiment Band of the Republic of Mexico, proved to be such a sensation, the trains from Atlanta to the Chautauqua were packed at every scheduled run. After a rendition of “Dixie and the Star Spangled Banner” at each performance, the Band received “vociferous applause.”
Indeed, Grady’s Chautauqua had exceeded all expectations.

Sadly, Henry W. Grady would be dead with the year, but his grand Piedmont Chautauqua lives on in the history books even if the grand hotel and magnificent Chautauqua buildings are a distant Douglas County memory.

Douglasville's Saloon Era

The word saloon conjures up images of the dusty west with gunslingers, cowboys, soldiers, miners and brazen women. There was card playing, lively piano music and fights involving fists and guns a la Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.

By January, 1877, Douglasville had her own saloons as well, with the passing of an ordinance that ushered in the Saloon Era, and for the next nine years citizens could obtain a drink of whiskey in one of several saloons that advertised regularly in The Weekly Star, the main Douglasville newspaper of the time.

Venture over to the west corner of Broad Street and Courthouse Square (known as Pray Street in the 1870s) and you would find yourself in front of the first saloon opened under the new ordinance by Mr. G.R. Turner. Mr. Turner was a member of the city council and also served as the city clerk.

The building that house the saloon was also known as the Old Skint Chestnut store building and was the site of the original skint chestnut tree that gave the area its original name.

Other saloons during the period were the Alligator Saloon, the Magnolia, White's Saloon, an Stewart's Saloon was located on Pray Street before it moved to the corner of Price and Broad.

The only difference between the saloons of the Wild West and the Douglasville saloons were the gunfights, as the folks who frequented the Douglasville saloons preferred to fight with knives and their fists. Many a citizen found themselves cut up during a knife fight, but Fannie Mae Davis' book regarding Douglas County history relates there were no murders. A week without a street fight was rare during the saloon heyday, and during election time votes could be bought for a shot of whiskey. By 1881, the citizens of Douglasville and other cities and towns across Georgia had had it with the street fights and bad element the saloons brought in.

This time period also coincided with the beginning of the Progressive Era -- a period of time in American history where reforms in social, political, an economic life took place. Areas of reform included women's suffrage, education, labor reforms including child labor laws, and even prohibition. Many of the calls for reform in Georgia did not come from political stars of the time but came from journalists -- men President Theodore Roosevelt is given credit for labeling the journalist as "muckrackers" because even though they told the truth they continually "raked the muck".

Douglasville was no different. Our fair town had a muckraker in Charles O. Peavey, the editor of The Weekly Star. Peavy began to speak out on the evils of whiskey as early as 1881 and by 1884 the issue had become an election focus. Mr. Peavy also operated a barbershop at the corner of Broad and Bowden streets.

The call for temperance across the state of Georgia had begun much earlier than 1881. The Georgia State Temperance Society had formed in 1828, and when the state chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union was established in 1880, efforts in the state really picked up steam. As the debate for Prohibition became stronger in Douglasville whole families split over wanting the saloons to close or keep them open.

Peavy compared the removal of the saloons to Shakespeare's The Tragedy of MacBeth using the popular line "Out, out damned spot" in one of his editorials calling for the saloons to be shut down.

He was interested in sending delegates to the State Temperance Convention in Atlanta during June, 1885 and US Senator, Dr. W.H. Felton of Cartersville, a man whose oratory skills were on the same par with the famous William Jennings Bryan, spoke in Douglasville against the ills of whiskey and he railed against "the whiskey men" -- those citizens who owned the saloons.

Prohibition was finally voted on and passed in Douglasville on October 28, 1885 passing by 114 votes. At this time there were three saloons remaining in the city. The city council worked with saloon owners who still had inventory to dispose of, but soon the saloon era was a thing of the past in Douglasville.

You can read more about Doc Holliday's connection with Georgia by reading my post The Hollidays, the Hamiltons and the Wilkes: A Connection over at Georgia on My Mind.