Atlanta And Its Builders, Vol. 1 - A Comprehensive History Of The Gate City Of The South. Thomas H. Martin
I have seen a three-horse wagon, almost empty, stalled where the viaduct now is.
"The whole mountain country poured its produce into the few stores near what was known as the Norcross corner. Cotton was bought by street buyers. Armed with their sharp gimlets they sampled the bags, and each one made his pass; the buyer would give the seller a ticket, to be given to John F. Mims, the agent of the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company, and he would pay for the cotton, and the buyer, who was frequently merely buying for a commission of 50 cents a bale, would draw on the Charleston or Augusta factor and repay the agency.
"It was a stirring time; everybody was busy; all the boys were at work. Henry McDaniel, afterward governor, and, I think, Bill Hulsey, afterward ordinary, used to carry brick in the brick yard, and I used to peddle books at the depot. I was the forerunner of all the army of news butchers.
"There were then in Atlanta the Peachtree road, Whitehall street, Alabama street, Hunter, Mitchell, Loyd, Pryor, Marietta, Walton and Decatur streets. These were the only streets laid off at that time, and they were then filled with stumps, and the first work of the new city administration was to have the stumps dug up. The brick yards were on all sides of the city. Few places had more gushing fountains than Atlanta, and a fine body of red clay was under the surface. Labor was abundant and cheap, and so was wood, and in every direction there were yards where a poor horse ground the clay with a wheel. Not a few of the substantial men of the city made their start carrying bricks at twenty-five cents a day.
"There was much gambling in the town, and 'professionals' were in great force. They were not even secret in their games, and I have seen the money on the table as they handled the 'papes,' as they called the cards. After the city was fairly officered, they were a little more hidden in their proceedings. There was no small amount of lawlessness of all kinds. One night some burglars broke into the store of a Scotchman named Frazier and stole a wagon-load of goods and carted them away. The thieves were caught and the goods recovered. A band of thieves carried on a long and extensive robbery of the cars, and some prominent persons were involved.
"The superior court was held at Decatur, and the only court held in Atlanta was the old justice's court of Major Buell. After him, the magistrate was Squire Shaw, father of my old friend, Gus Shaw, the Broad street commission merchant. The first law case I ever saw tried was in a then vacant store-house, near the railroad crossing on Whitehall street. His honor was sitting in awful dignity, munching a ginger cake.
"In 1847 Atlanta had one brick house in it, but in 1848 it had a score. The first private dwelling of brick, as I remember, was Dr. Austin's, built in 1848 on Marietta street, and near that time Judge Julius Hayden built the second. The first hall in Atlanta was over McDaniel's store. The first foundry was Dunning's. The first car shop and machine shop was Joseph Winship's.
"The Masonic lodge was already established and my father joined the Masons in the summer of that year. The Odd Fellows, I think, came the next year. They had a hall near the Masonic lodge. The Sons of Temperance had a division the last of 1847, and my father was the first worthy patriarch. It flourished for several years.
"The Catholics began their church, I think, in 1848. It was located on Loyd street, near where it stands now. They had a regular priest as soon as their house was finished. I do not remember the first Catholic priest, but I remember very well the courtly and classic James F. O'Neill, who was in charge at a later day. Father Matthew came to Atlanta, and I heard him deliver a temperance speech. A good many joined his society, but I am afraid their adherence was not long continued.
''The Baptists, who had the first completed church in the city, had regular Sunday services from the middle of 1848. The Methodists, after using their puncheon seats for a few months, succeeded in getting the church supplied with plain pews. I remember my father raised the money — about $80 — by subscriptions of one dollar each. As old Jacob Johnson, the first painter, was a member, I think the church was painted then. When Willis Peck moved to Atlanta, he plastered the church. It had a gallery in it, but one Sunday the gallery fell, and it was not replaced.
"The preachers who gave the Methodists service every month were Anderson Ray and Eustace W. Speer, afterward Dr. Speer, the brilliant and beloved. He was scarcely of age then, though he was a married man. The next year Rev. John Yarbrough and Rev. James W. Hinton were pastors, and Dr. Hinton, still living in Macon, began his ministry here. We had a great many fine preachers to give occasional service in Atlanta. Dr. Stiles, Bishop Pierce, Dr. Pierce, Dr. Means, Bishop Elliott, gave us occasional sermons. Dr. J. S. Wilson gave us a sermon every month, which, as his old hearers will well remember, were stately, orthodox, able and long. Rev. John W. Yarbrough and Dr. Alex Wynn, father of J. O. Wynn, of the Prudential Insurance company, were on the circuits which included Atlanta. A great revival began and over a hundred persons joined the Methodist church.
"The city was growing vigorously. It was rather ungainly, but it was vigorous. It was almost as large as Griffin, and Macon was beginning to notice it. Atlanta, of course, wanted something after she began to spread, and there were hints that the capital ought to be moved from Milledgeville; but as Macon clamored for that, for the time being the Atlanta people said the penitentiary would do. Apropos of which the Macon paper suggested that a wall around Atlanta and an appointed keeper would provide admirably for the demand.
"There had been no grading in those days, and lofty hills were where are now level highways, and I have found it difficult, and in some places impossible, to identify in the closely built city the hills on which I gathered wild flowers and picked chinquepins fifty years ago. All along what was known as the McDonough road was a long row of one and two-roomed log cabins, owned by very poor people. From Garnett street westward was a very disreputable section known as Snake Nation, whose precincts I feared to enter when I was a boy. There was a small collection of houses on a high hill on Marietta street going toward Squire Payne's. The graveyard was about where the governor's mansion is, and here I saw the first interment with the Masonic ritual I ever saw. Oakland cemetery was secured by the city a little after this, and there were no burials on Peachtree after that. There was no undertaker and no ready-made coffins. Mr. Clarke had a cabinet-maker's shop about opposite Trinity church, which met the demands, and an ordinary wagon was used for a hearse.
"The Enterprise and The Luminary were the papers in 1847. The Enterprise was owned by Rough Rice, and The Luminary, which went out about the time we came, by, I think, a man named Clapp. But in the summer of that year Colonel Cornelius R. Hanleiter brought the Southern Miscellany from Madison and opened an office in Atlanta near Loyd street. The colonel was a very good editor, a fine practical printer, a staunch Episcopalian, and a Whig of the most decided character. In 1847 he polished the first carrier's address issued in Atlanta. It was a rhyming description of the city written by my father. It was a photograph of the city as it then was. This address was sold by the sole carrier, now Colonel William R. Hanleiter.
"The war with Mexico was now over, and the officers were returning eastward. I was peddling maps and books at the cars, and was greatly interested in the returning heroes. I remember General Twiggs, General Shields, and General Quitman. One of the officers, supposing I was a newsboy, asked me for a New York paper. I ran over to the Miscellany office and bought all it had, and sold the first newspaper ever sold in Atlanta. Frank Rice came later than I did, and has made more money from his literary vendings than I ever did. The old colonel left the Miscellany for the telegraph office, and then was a mail agent when my father was postmaster. He had the first job office in Atlanta, published the first directory and wrote the first history.
"Atlanta was so central that it became the assembling place for great Southern conventions. The first I recall was a railway convention in 1847. I remember an address made at it by a New York merchant named Whitney, who was urging the people to petition congress to build a railway to the Pacific. As we did not have California then, he proposed to strike for Oregon. He was sure the road could be built for $10,000 a mile. In the summer there was a famous temperance convention. The temperance society of Georgia, with Henry Lumpkin as president, was making a vigorous movement on the state, and Dabney P. Jones, known everywhere as Uncle Dabney, was the state lecturer. A convention was called and Judge R. M. Charlton, of Savannah, was to deliver the address. The best people in Georgia were present. My father had written me a speech, and I was on the programme. So, after