First good sleep! I wake with a definite cold and throat but feel ok. There is total comfort and it is so cosy. It is super equipped and the host is great, there's even a friendly cat for J. But there are no hangers! So it's the day today; the wedding or rather wedding blessing!
It's cloudy which is a shame
It's cloudy which is a shame
We take it easy then decide to explore. First something on the history of this area.
In 1830, while on a trip to northern Georgia, Roswell King passed through the area which is now Roswell and observed the great potential for building a cotton mill along Vickery Creek. Since the land nearby was also good for plantations, his idea was to put cotton processing near cotton production. Roswell (1765 – February 15, 1844) was a businessman, planter, slave owner, and industrialist. Together with his son, Barrington King, he founded Roswell Manufacturing Company in the Georgia Piedmont, establishing a cotton mill and industrial complex, as well as the town of Roswell. He invited investors from the coast to join him at the new location. He was also joined by Barrington King, one of his sons, who succeeded his father in the manufacturing company. Archibald Smith was one of the planters who migrated there to establish a new plantation, also bringing enslaved African Americans from the coastal areas.
Barrington Hall (the home of Barrington King), Smith Plantation (the home of Archibald Smith) and Bulloch Hall (the childhood home of Mittie Bulloch, President Theodore Roosevelt's mother, have been preserved and restored, and the former visited by ourselves last night. According to the 1850 Slave Schedules, these three "founding families", together with the next three largest planters, held 192 slaves, 51% of the total 378 slaves held in Roswell District. Archibald Smith had a 300-acre (1.2 km2) cotton plantation. According to the 1850 Census, Barrington King held 70 slaves. Half of these slaves were under the age of 10. These slaves worked in Barrington's household. Barrington King "leased" or "rented" some of his adult male slaves to the Roswell Manufacturing Company, but they did not work around the mill machinery.
By the time of the Civil War, the cotton mills employed more than 400 people, mostly women, who were probably of Scots Irish descent.During the Civil War, the city was captured by Union forces who shipped the mill workers north to prevent them from returning to work if the mills were rebuilt. This was a common tactic, used to economically disrupt the South. The mill was burned, but the houses were left standing. The ruins of the mill and the 30-foot (9.1 m) dam that was built for power still remain. Most of the town's property was confiscated by Union forces. The leading families had left the town to go to safer places well before the Federal invasion, and arranged for their slaves to be taken away from advancing Federal troops, as was often the practice. Some slaves may have escaped to Union lines. Read about the Roswell women here
After the war, Barrington King rebuilt the mills and resumed production. While many freedmen stayed in the area to work as paid labor on plantations or in town, others migrated to Fulton County and Atlanta for new opportunities. The South suffered an agricultural depression resulting from the effects of the war.
We happen upon the Public House for coffee, you can read more here
or in a later post here
We stumble across an interesting food mart
Here's some more local history for you
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