Atlanta And Its Builders, Vol. 1 - A Comprehensive History Of The Gate City Of The South. Thomas H. Martin
man, even though he won it. He neither took advantage of youth nor ignorance, and he gave to the poor and was very much respected. There were a great many other noted gamblers in and around Atlanta, but these, unlike the one spoken of, were generally of bad reputation.
"There was only one telegraph instrument in the city, and that was the one Mr. Sloan used; and the line extending from Macon to Atlanta was the only one known. This instrument was one of the old-style paper register machines, but was a very great curiosity to the people around Atlanta. Telegrams from here to New York had to go around by the way of Savannah. In 1850 Mr. Sloan says that he saw a man by the name of Thomas Kile murdered in front of his office. He was stabbed, and the murderer made good his escape. Kile's daughter caught her father's body in order to support him, and was covered all over with blood. The murderer used to send telegrams to his family here through Mr. Sloan's office. The man was in Alabama and sent the telegrams through Macon. The authorities here endeavored to find out through Mr. Sloan his whereabouts, but could not do so. He would not betray the secrets of the office even in such a case, except on one occasion. He received a dispatch to the marshal of Atlanta, notifying him to look out on the Georgia train for one Philip Goode, who was wanted in South Carolina for murder. Mr. Sloan was a native of South Carolina, and knew this man very well, and they were personal friends. He knew that if Goode had murdered anyone he had done so in a drunken row, or something of the kind, as he was of a good family. So he managed to go to the train before he saw the marshal, and the first man he met was Goode, whom he told to escape for his life. Goode left, and immediately afterward Mr. Sloan met the marshal and gave him the telegram. The marshal hastened to the train, but missed his man.
"Once a green countryman came to town to send a negro to Macon, on the train. Several of the fun-loving boys here told him to send him by telegraph, as it would be cheaper. Accordingly, they sent him with the negro over to Mr. Sloan's office. He, suspecting some trick, got them to take hold of the poles of his battery, and then turned on the circuit, whereupon they began to jump around, and the white man said he didn't want to go too. He soon found out, however, that he was being duped, and he broke loose and made for Sloan, who had to hide, for he saw that the countrymen intended to whip him.
"Mr. Sloan had an offer made him in real estate, in 1850, which, if he had accepted, would have been today many thousand dollars in his pocket. A party, who was anxious to sell, offered him one hundred acres of land, including the ground on which the new capitol now stands, for $1,000. Mr. Sloan let the opportunity go by, and narrowly missed making a fortune."
CHAPTER IX. PROGRESS AND OUTLAWRY
In 1849 Atlanta began to be looked upon as a big town and an important town. It was the Mecca of the adventurer and shrewd investor, as well as home-seeker, and, as can well be imagined, the elements of citizenship were incongruous and conditions chaotic. This was but the natural consequence in an inchoate town, suddenly made famous. At the first municipal election it was seen that the issue of the near future would be who should rule, the respectable and moral element, or the semi-outlaw, sporting class. Indeed, this issue was raised at that time, though in a more covert way than at the next election. Jonathan Norcross had been a candidate against Moses Formwalt for mayor, and it was well understood, among the "rowdies," at least, that their greatest security lay in the election of the latter. Murrell's Row was solid for Formwalt.
Before narrating the exciting incidents of the Norcross election in 1850, it is best to note something of the progress of the community the previous year, and to consider conditions that made a conflict between the two forces inevitable in the next local political campaign. The completion of the State road was an event of 1849, and a very vital event in the early history of Atlanta. Commercially the young city was now unbound and free to give her feet the wings of Mercury. The increase in population was on the ''magical" order. By the end of this year it is safe to say that 2,500 people were numbered in Atlanta's population, and more than a hundred newcomers arriving every month. The amount of building going on was remarkable for so small a town in the East. Brick yards lined the outskirts, and the hum of the circular saw resounded through the environing woods. The place was full of mechanics attracted from a hundred miles around to get temporary work. Wages were good for that day, and employment to be had for the asking. In the residence portion of the town extensive improvement was in progress. Beautiful residences were going up on Marietta, Peachtree and Decatur streets, then the best residence quarters, some of them spacious brick mansions with classic porticos. The log cabins good enough for two or three years before were torn down to make room for neat frame cottages, and grades were established on the central streets and some preliminary paving done. The shipping interests of the town had become very large, and now that the Western and Atlantic "went somewhere," traffic by rail increased enormously.
In this year of unexampled prosperity and activity, a new paper was born in Atlanta, and its coming was a signal that the time was ripe for grappling with the law and order problem. The sheet was called the Atlanta Intelligencer, and its editor was that irrepressible reformer and divine, Joseph Baker, nothing daunted by the extinction of his Luminary. The new paper was owned by a joint stock company composed of Colonel Z. A. Rice, Ira O. McDaniel, Benjamin F. Bomar and Jonathan Norcross. They hired the Rev. Baker to edit their paper, and their purpose was soon manifest.
The town was by this time in a disgracefully disorderly condition, the authority of the municipal government being set at naught by the hundreds of "toughs" who had no visible means of support. As the time for holding another city election drew near, the alignment of the opposing forces was well under way, and the bitterest sort of a feeling existed between them long before the nominations were made. The Intelligencer thundered against the "Rowdy Party," and called for a clean sweep. A mass meeting of the "upholders of good morals and public order" nominated Jonathan Norcross as the candidate of what was called the "Moral Party," and the other faction nominated Lawyer L. C. Simpson, for mayor. To say that the campaign was hot would not be at all hyperbolical. During every day that it endured, one or more more or less prominent citizens were put "hors du combat" by the crudest exercise of the art of pugilism, and during much of the time, after dark, the town seemed to be in possession of a howling mob. There were over forty drinking saloons in the place, to say nothing of the groceries that dealt in ardent refreshments, and it goes without saying that they all did a land-office business while the great political war raged. While Simpson and his backers were turning their money loose in the bar-rooms, Jonathan Norcross and his friends, to emphasize the moral plane on which they were righting, treated liberally to apples and confectionery. The Moral Party held several big rallies at which the leaders denounced the corruption and disorder existing in Atlanta, and called upon the better element to rescue the city from rowdyism and vice. The Rowdy Party held no mass meetings, but an outlet was not wanting for their enthusiasm. Happily, the election passed off without any fatalities, resulting in the election of Jonathan Norcross as mayor of Atlanta.
It had been the boast of the most turbulent spirits in the Rowdy Party that "Uncle Jonathan" would find the town too hot to hold him, if he tried to execute his proposed reforms, and in more than one instance he had been threatened with personal violence. It was a part of the mayor's duties to hold police court, there being no municipal recorder at that time. Mayor Norcross had been in office but a day or two when he was called upon to try a burly ruffian who had been arrested for an affray on the street. Trouble was expected at the hearing, as some of the most dangerous Murrellites were suspected of plotting to do the new mayor harm by getting themselves arrested and attacking him in open court. The city government then had its headquarters in a second story room of the building afterward occupied by the dry goods establishment of John Keely. A large crowd was present to witness the mayor's first case, and a large part of the spectators were by no means sympathetic. The case proceeded with due formality, and as the evidence was conclusive. Mayor Norcross fined the bully and was about to proceed with the next case when the fellow suddenly rose from his chair, as the officers were advancing to his side to take him to the calaboose, and drew a wicked-looking bowie knife with a blade at least a foot long. Flourishing the weapon over his head, the prisoner loudly defied any man in the court room to take him and declared that he proposed to start a slaughter pen right there. At that he started to cut and slash right and left with his big knife, the crowd falling over each other in their