Atlanta And Its Builders, Vol. 1 - A Comprehensive History Of The Gate City Of The South. Thomas H. Martin
customers. There was a good deal of bartering in those days, and many frontiersmen used hides and furs in lieu of currency. The railroad gave the inhabitants no outlet for their small produce, and after the work of constructing the railroad was finished, the local market was very limited. Butter, eggs and the other commodities of the small fanner were a drug on the market, and as these had to be taken by the merchants in exchange for their goods, if they did any business, it is easy to imagine that no great degree of prosperity resulted. The year following the opening of the road there was talk about Terminus being "overdone," and some of the businessmen are said to have moved to Marietta and Decatur. The great need felt by the town was an outlet to the larger cities of the coast, and the coming of a road from the east was impatiently awaited. Even with two other railroads headed her way and expected to arrive within two or three years at the furthest there seems to have been no speculative interest in Terminus. The few lot-holders were apparently more interested in what the ground would produce in the way of garden truck and Indian corn than what it would bring in the real estate market. An attempt was made as early as 1842 to get up a little real estate excitement by some of the larger realty holders, but it amounted to little. A land auction was held that year and an attempt made to sell off the famous Mitchell lot, a year or two later the source of dangerous ill-feeling and litigation in which many of the older citizens were concerned. Fred Arms acted as auctioneer, disposing of three subdivisions to David Dougherty, Wash Collier and himself for a very modest sum. By this time there were perhaps a score of buildings in Terminus, most of them log dwellings. But five or six acres of the virgin forest had been cleared. The cross-roads leading to the hamlet, later known as Marietta, Peachtree, Decatur and Whitehall streets, were, when the place was known as Terminus, named for the original landowners, Reuben Cone, Ammi Williams, and Samuel Mitchell. After the railroad was finished, some of the laborers who had been thrown out of employment remained in the village, forming a rather disorderly and disreputable element of the population. They rendezvoused at a drinking dive kept by one of their number and spent their time largely in gambling and cock-fighting.
The engine hauled over from Madison continued to make regular trips over the State road, with W. F. Adair at the throttle. It was one of the largest locomotives manufactured at that time and had been christened "Florida." As traffic with the west increased, the prospects of Terminus brightened. Travel over the road became quite an item in the town's support, many of the travelers stopping over night to take the train. There was no tavern worthy of the name, but every house was an improvised inn. The entertainment of these transient guests helped to put money in circulation, and small things were not despised when Atlanta was in swaddling clothes. There was also quite a factor of support in the board and trade of the few railroad officials and employees who made their headquarters at Terminus.
It was not until two railroads had arrived in the place that the inhabitants enjoyed school facilities or a regular place of worship. No clergyman resided in Terminus, nor were there professional men of any kind. However, occasionally a circuit rider of the Baptist or Methodist persuasion would ride into town and announce a meeting, generally in the open air. On such occasions the citizens would turn out en masse. Louis L. Parham, one of the best posted chroniclers of Atlanta's early days, says of the primitive religious gatherings: "Early worship in Terminus was not conducive to great spirituality. However devout these pioneers, when it is considered how scant the means for communion, it precludes the thought that 'goin' to meetin' ' was other than irksome. And yet it is recorded that the handful of worshippers who gathered Sundays in any place offered them to worship the God of their fathers, were as devout as any of this day. The first place where services were held in the rude hamlet was in the open air near a cut made by the railroad builders. Some large rocks had been thrown out by the blasters, and on these a handful of men, women and children sat and listened to the simple services — 'praised God from whom all blessings flow.' They had the blue canopy of the heavens for a covering and the earth for a footstool. But this was not for long. As the place grew it became necessary to have a house in which to hold services. Occasionally they met in a two-story frame office building which belonged to the Western and Atlantic railroad and stood on a lot now occupied by the Southern Express company and the Brown building on Wall street." The building referred to by Mr. Parham was the frame structure used as headquarters by the officers of the old State road, spoken of in the foregoing.
CHAPTER IV. WHEN ATLANTA WAS MARTHASVILLE
The hamlet went by the name of Terminus scarcely two years. In the spring of 1843 somebody, who probably found time hanging heavy on his hands, began an agitation to change the name of the burg. Through most of the summer the proposed change of name was the principal topic of discussion among the ten or a dozen families who inhabited the place. Ex-Governor Lumpkin had been a tireless worker for the railroad development of Georgia and was regarded as an especial friend of Terminus. Efforts were being made to get him to make or influence others to make some investments there, and somebody who believed with Shakespeare that there was nothing in a name, suggested that Terminus be re-christened Marthasville, in honor of Governor Lumpkin's daughter Martha. The handful of denizens, with unanimous bad taste, fell in with the idea, and the meaningless but quaint name of Marthasville was adopted by common consent. When the legislature convened in the winter it was petitioned for a charter under the new name, and on the 23rd of December the village was formally incorporated as Marthasville. The name Terminus, which at least meant something, fell into desuetude. In speaking of this action on the part of the Terminusites, the well-known early historian, E. Y. Clarke, says: "This may appear to have been quite fast for a community of ten families at most; but it should be regarded rather as the evidence, or first manifestation, of that spirit of enterprise which afterwards became so distinctive an element of progress."
It may prove interesting, at this distant day, to give excerpts from the act of incorporation and to dwell somewhat upon the first year or two's political organization. Few of the village records have been preserved, and already the history of Marthasville as a municipality is little more than tradition. The preamble of the act of incorporation follows:
"Be it enacted, etc., that from and after the passage of this act, L. V. Gannon, John Bailey, Willis Carlisle, John Kile, sr., and Patrick Quinn, be, and they are hereby, appointed commissioners of the town of Marthasville, in the county of DeKalb, situated at the southeast terminus of the Western and Atlantic railroad; and they, or a majority of them and their successors in office, shall have power and authority to pass all by-laws and ordinances which they or a majority of them may deem expedient and necessary for the improvement and benefit of the internal police of the said town; provided, nevertheless, that said by-laws be not repugnant to the constitution of the United States, nor to the constitution and laws of this state.''
The first commissioners were to hold their office until the first Monday in March, 1845, when, and on the same day in each subsequent year, a town election was to be held to elect five commissioners. Under the provisions of the charter these officials were empowered to convene at such time and place within the corporate limits of the town as they might elect, and proceed to select a clerk of the board and transact such business as might properly come before them. They were given corporate jurisdiction to the extent of the boundary lines of the town, with the provision that their jurisdiction should be extended as the boundary lines of the town were extended.
The first year of the history of Marthasville, from all accounts of the surviving pioneers, was a good deal in the nature of a "kangaroo" government. A few ordinances of the most rudimentary kind were passed with due solemnity, but they were not respected by the citizenry, nor was much effort made to enforce them. The spasmodic weak attempts to try offenders only brought ridicule upon the grave and reverend law-makers and the officers entrusted with the enforcement of their laws. The people continued to live as though they were squatter sovereigns in the back woods, and their bucolic ways were undisturbed by superfluous metropolitan frills. The attempt to collect corporation taxes resulted in a "water haul," and the town was utterly without financial resources. As a consequence, the ordinances for the laying out and improvement of streets were dead letters. The most ambitions "avenues" remained mere cow trails, and citizens had to jump across a "deer lick" to walk across the "business center." The riff-raff railroad element of the population, by this time considerably augmented, grew more turbulent and