Roswell was a Georgia textile town before the Civil War. Once the war started, the Confederate government contracted with the mills to produce a wide variety of products made of textiles for its soldiers. In July of 1864 Union troops involved in William T. Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign occupied the town on their way to cross Peachtree Creek and finish their attack on Atlanta. The Federal troops burned the mills and several additional buildings and captured civilian workers at the mils, including many women, and sent them up north to be held as prisoners.
There are several sites where you can see ruins, preserved buildings, and a modern-day monument, as well as wayside markers explaining what happened in 1864. If the weather is nice, you should start at the Old Mill Park. The park is located at 95 Mill St, Roswell, GA 30075. You can access the park online here.
There is adequate free parking right next to the entrance to the park and the admission is free. The park is owned by the City of Roswell. It has a newly constructed boardwalk that is up above the creek where the mills were. It was easily walked by me even though I am almost seventy years of age. There are other trails down by the creek that are somewhat more strenuous. There are restrooms available on site.
The city government says that on summer weekends the parking lot will fill up and advises you to either get there early or use a rideshare service. The city center, just outside the park, has over 90,000 residents. There are a number of reasonably priced restaurants within a ten minute drive of the park .
Below is the entrance to the park. I went on a Friday afternoon on a school day and you can see that there were a fair number of people there of varying ages. Some were there for exercise, some to get out in nature, some for history, some, like me, were there for all three. The history hike takes less than an hour. Bring water.
The park really welcomes you in. It is excellently maintained and seems to improve every time I go here. I first saw it back in 1982.
Down on the creek, you will see a covered bridge which is a big attraction for the children who visit. The bridge is a modern construction, but the kids love it. The bridge was dedicated in 2004. Next to the bridge was the site of the 1839 Mill. Here is a description from the wayside marker:
The 1839 Mill was a three-story brick structure, measuring 88 feet by 48 feet. It was destroyed by Union soldiers in 1864 and was never rebuilt. All that remains are portions of a rock wall that served as part of the tailrace and foundation wall.
The land under you in the park was part of the Cherokee Nation. They were illegally forced out of the area by Andrew Jackson in 1830 in what is now called the Trail of Tears. After the expulsion, Roswell King, a merchant and a banker, visited the area and saw that the running water of Vickery Creek with its rapids and waterfall would be an opportune place to locate a mill. In 1835 he bought land that is now in the park to set up his textile mill. He envisioned that the area nearby would be put to cotton cultivation which would supply his mill with raw materials. The Roswell Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1839. That year the first mill was built using the labor of enslaved carpenters. In 1853 a second mill was constructed. The two mills employed a total of 250 workers.
At the start of the Civil War The Roswell Manufacturing Company had two textile mills, a flour mill, a machine shop, a general store, and a blacksmith’s shop. Below is the machine shop directly down from the entrance. Bathrooms are near this site. The machine shop was built in 1854.
All along the trail are interpretive markers as well as maps.
Here is a close-up.
The wayside markers include narrative text, reproductions of primary sources, and illustrations from the 19th Century. Some have maps and modern-day illustration of mill productivity.
Head towards your left on the boardwalk and you will find yourself in the middle of a destroyed village. Here is what the text of the wayside says:
Mill workers were generally poor white tenant farmers who sought to better their condition. They desired the stable employment and steady wages that resulted from working in a mill.
It was not uncommon for entire families, including children, to make up the textile labor force. Men were employed as weavers, loom fixers, carders, or supervisors. Women worked in spinning rooms and as weavers. Boys labored as doffers, replacing bobbins filled with thread with empty ones, or sweepers.
The operatives worked long hours, six days a week. According to a report in the Minutes of the Stockholders’ Meeting, dated 30 October 1854:
“…we began at five o’clock and ended at seven and on Saturday stopping at five o’clock.”
Factory hands toiled in the midst of the deafening clamor of the massive machines, the overpowering heat and humidity, and the suffocating dust and lint fibers. Severe injuries occurred when limbs or clothing became entangled in the fast moving machinery.
Wages of mill workers were low and dependent on their skill level. Male operatives made $8 a month in the 1840s. By 1930, a women working in the mill earned $12 a week. In the early years, the Roswell Manufacturing Company paid wages in company scrip redeemable only at the company-owned store.
The Roswell Store was built across from the town square in 1854. Workers purchased groceries, housewares, and goods made in the mills at the commissary.
The company provided housing in an area called “Factory Hill”, overlooking the mill. Log cabins were replaced in the 1850s with duplex housing and apartment buildings, referred to as “The Bricks”. In October of 1898, the tenement dwellings were whitewashed and ceilings were installed to make them more comfortable in the winter. Water was drawn from common wells.
Barrington King, president of the Roswell Manufacturing Company, took a fatherly interest in his workers. He protected them from the evils of drinking, made provisions for the instruction of their children, and supplemented their income in times of slow production.
A short distance from the village you can start to see the foundation of the 1853 mill. The wayside says:
Manufacturing textiles from raw cotton required many different processes. Each process required the use of specialized machinery.
The Roswell Manufacturing Company purchased local cotton that was hauled to the factory n wagons by area farmers. The bales of cotton, weighing an average of 500 pounds, were stored in the cotton warehouse. Cotton bales were slid down a chute from the warehouse to the Picker House where the cotton was cleaned and rolled into blankets called laps.
Carding- The laps were taken to the carding room on the third floor of the mill building, where the cotton was combed and carded into soft ropes or slivers. The slivers were stretched and twisted into coarse yarn calling roving, then drawn out and wound onto bobbins.
Spinning- In the spinning room on the second floor of the mill, the bobbins were placed on spinning frames where the course yarn was stretched and twisted from two robing bobbins into finished yard. Turning spindles wound the yarn onto spools.
Weaving- The weaving process was accomplished on the ground floor level using looms. A warp frame holding yard moved up and down on the weaving loom while a weft thread was slid in a shuttle across the frame. The frame was then lifted and the west thread was shuttled back across a second warp frame. The alternating up and down motion of each of the frames interlaced the yarns creating cloth.
Finishing- After weaving, the cloth was wound on a cloth winder to facilitate further processing. The product could then be dyed.
During the 1880s, the Roswell mill was known for the manufacturing of sheeting, shirting, checks, and yarns. Finished products were sent to points in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and as far away as Philadelphia and St. Louis.
1853 Mill- The mill was a four-story brick building that measured 140 feet by 53 feet. During a violent thunderstorm in 1926, lightning started a fire that destroyed the cotton mill, the picker house, and the warehouse. The mill was not rebuilt.
Another nearby sign tells the tale of the Union Army’s impact on Roswell.
During the Civil War, the cotton mills produced sheeting, tenting, yarn, and rope for the Confederate War effort. Barrington King invested heavily in Confederate bonds on behalf of the Roswell Manufacturing Company.
On the 5th of July 1864, Federal troops arrived in the Roswell area to take advantage of the bridge crossing the Chattahoochee River and the nearby shallow ford on their advance towards Atlanta. Union General Kenner Garrard learned that the bridge had been burned by the Roswell Battalion and, upon entering the town, discovered that the cotton mills were engaged in the manufacturing of goods for the Confederacy.
The 2nd U.S. Cavalry Division, under the authority of Garrard, was commanded to destroy the mills. General William T. Sherman then ordered Garrard to arrest all the mill operatives (mostly women and children), charge the with treason, and send them under guard to Marietta, where they were transported by troop trains north to Louisville, Kentucky. Eventually, the workers were released upon taking the oath of allegiance.
The women and the children filed out of the structure at once in quiet wonder on the banks of the stream, watching our preparations for the destruction of the mills. It did seem at first blush, to be a wanton act, to fire these polished machines which filled the building from basement to the top story, after they came to a stand still. But all is fair, as it has been stated, in love and war.
At the end of the war, stockholders of the Roswell Manufacturing Company voted to rebuild the 1853 mill. The factory was back in operation by 1867. The 1839 mill was not rebuilt.
Follow the boardwalk a little further and there is a stripped away view of some of the mill machinery.
A description of the mechanics of a mill is one the next wayside:
The machinery in the turbine housing, the wheel pit, and the tailrace are still visible in front of this panel. These items record the growth and development of the Roswell Manufacturing Company from the 1850s until the last generator was silenced at the beginning of the 20th century.
Originally, an iron overshot waterwheel provided power for the 1853 mill. The mill wheel measured 16 feet wide by 20 feet in diameter. Water from the overhead raceway fell on bucket-like paddles. The weight of the falling water turned the wheel and provided power to a network of rotating gears and shafts that operated the mill machinery. In 1877, a turbine replaced the original waterwheel. Turbine blades are curved and set vertically. Water from the raceway was funneled against the blade forcing the axle to spin. The rotational motion transferred to a mechanical system of shafts, gears, belts and pulleys throughout the building. Leather belts were affixed to ta shaft, which hung from the ceiling of each floor. These belts transferred power from the mechanical system to individual machines. Droughts and floods affected the flow of water in the creek, causing a constant slowdown of the machinery. This often resulted in days of lost productivity. The addition of supplemental steam power in 1897 allowed the mill to be more independent of the fluctuating waterpower. By 1898, hydroelectricity was used in the 1882 mill and by 1911 in the 1853 mill.
In 1928, Georgia Power connected electricity for the last remaining mill ending the era of water powered technology.
More of the foundation of the mill.
Below are pieces of textile equipment.
The water wheel which drove the manufacturing.
While the boardwalk is accessible to handicapped people, there is a short trail off the boardwalk that is not accessible. It takes you past more displays of equipment and down to the creek. To get to the creek you have to duck under some pipe. I did not have any problem meandering on this trail but someone in a wheelchair might not want to follow it.
Just fifty yards from where you hit the creek you will see the “waterfall” or dam. You can take an easy path to stand right at the precipice.
It ain’t Niagara Falls, but it is worth it to view if your legs can take it.
There are more trails after the dam, but most people head back from this point.
Throughout you will see some beautiful scenery.
This one Civil War site that you can bring your whole family to see. Just a short drive from the city, you can drive there, tour, and drive back to Atlanta in just a couple of hours.
Note: All color photos in this post were taken by Patrick Young except as noted.
