Speaking of old mills of the mid 19th century, in nearby Roswell, Georgia, was the Roswell Mill.
Roswell Mill was owned by the founder of Roswell, Georgia, Roswell King. He was a New Englander, Connecticut, I think. Roswell was looking for a good spot to have a mill near a good river and selected an area on the north bank of the Chattahoochee River in Cobb County.* And in an area where he could probably get cheap labor. Thus, he founded Roswell. And he invited his family members and good friends to become the city’s first elite** of the town.
When Sherman began his swath of destruction through Georgia his men were destroying mills in their path, unless they were foreign owned – then they would honor them as not Southern owned, therefore, they got to stay in business. Roswell King made a Frenchman temporarily president and of Roswell Mills. When Sherman’s officers were inspecting the mills they were making Confederate uniforms and other items to aid the Confederate war effort.
The 400 or so Roswell Mill Workers, mostly women were arrested as traitors and sent to northern states to work in the mills.
The picture above, Adeline Bagley, is a distant relative of Anna who was a Roswell Mill worker. She lived 1825-1910. It is a sad war story. Adeline was arrested in 1864 by Sherman’s men and transported with hundreds other to Chicago to work in a mill or factory. At the time her husband Pvt. J. Buice was in the war. When he returned, he waited for years, then assumed she had died, remarried. She returned, on foot, in 1869. Her husband already had a family. As far as I know she spent the rest of her life alone. War is Hell.
*Now Roswell, Georgia, is no longer in Cobb County. It has been re-mapped to be in Fulton County.
** One elite family in town produced Martha Bulloch, who was the mother of President Theodore Roosevelt.
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