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| Atlanta before it was burned |
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| Atlanta vicinity |
When we first think of early Atlanta of course the mind immediately goes to the Civil War and the burning of the city. We know the history of slavery, and Sherman's march, and the stories of Atlanta reinventing itself out of the ashes. I think because Atlanta was still a young city when all this happened, and because it is such a devastating beginning, it is easy to see why Atlanta has chosen to leave its early history behind. I am a fairly new transplant to Atlanta. I was born in the South and come from a Southern family, though, as did my husband. I moved away at a fairly young age and lived largely in California and then as an adult spent many years in New York City. Moving to Atlanta was interesting for me, precisely because I feel somewhat distanced from its complex history. I am fascinated by a city that has so much history but largely ignores it, and chooses instead to constantly try to reinvent itself anew. I think somehow that early beginning still influences Atlanta's identity. Even today you hear regularly of old buildings being torn down or left to decay without much of an uproar. There is a wonderful history center here, and various organizations that try to maintain what history is left. It is not really a city that embraces its architecture, though, and certainly that is not what people think of when they are thinking of Atlanta. That is in part because a lot of it has been lost, especially due to various times of urban downturn and then renewal. There are many hidden gems here despite this, some existing quietly, like our home, for so many years without anyone realizing their significance. I find that fascinating. Perhaps because I don't really identify as Southern I can study or embrace the history here without the feelings of guilt or justified anger many Southerners associate with its past.
I did not know a lot about the history of Atlanta before the Civil War, unless you count the images we all grew up with watching Gone With the Wind. The Hollywood vision of Georgia is quite different than its reality. Of course large plantations and slavery existed here, but those images were made much grander by Hollywood's depiction. Mitchell herself had a much more realistic model for her book.
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| The Grant mansion, more typical of grand houses |
Some think Lemuel P. Grant’s big boxy house on St. Paul Place just southeast of downtown Atlanta was part of Mitchell’s inspiration for Tara. Built in 1858 by the man who designed the city’s defenses during the Civil War, the house was stucco-covered brick, scored to resemble stone, a typical treatment for a house of that period. Typical too of the late 1850s, it was more Italianate than Greek Revival in its design, but it was an authentic survivor from the Old South and, when she died in 1949, Mitchell was trying to see that the then-neglected house was preserved.
As her book took shape, Mitchell spent endless hours in the library, talking to academics and others, and checking and re-checking her facts. “[W]hat ever else may be wrong with my book,” she said, “I do want it to be accurate.”[5] Her father was one of the founding members of the Atlanta Historical Society and his original research on Atlanta place names and other topics was part of his daughter’s fact-checking for her book.[6]
Also, an old family plantation also stood as inspiration:
Much like her characters, Tara evolved out of several sources, not the least of which was her maternal great-grandfather Philip Fitzgerald’s antebellum plantation in Clayton County. Born in Ireland in 1798, he was dead long before Mitchell was born, but his spinster daughters were still farming the place when she was growing up, and she spent happy summers there, absorbing their tales of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Located on several hundred rolling acres along the Flint River twenty miles south of Atlanta, the house itself had evolved around a two-story, plantation-plain style house built around 1830. Acquired by Fitzgerald in 1835, the house was wood-framed and had two rooms on each floor. Typical of the period, the kitchen was in a small structure detached from the house, but eventually connected by a breezeway.
Sounds very similar to my own house. Beyond those idealized structures, what was Atlanta city life like, I wondered? In my research I have found a very energetic young city, especially in the 5-10 years leading up to the war. There were early white settlers here in the 1820's but I think the 1840's and 50's saw an influx of people working hard to build a great new city, many of them not even necessarily Southerners. They saw an opportunity to be a part of something young and exciting and create a good life for themselves. A good resource is Franklin M. Garrett's very extensive book Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events, 1820s-1870s. It is a really comprehensive retelling of those early times and early people and has been a great resource to me personally.
When researching Downing Hill I was initially led to Richard Peters.
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| Richard Peters (1810-1889) |
Peters played an integral part in the building, and even naming of Atlanta. Born in Pennsylvania, Peter's grandfather was an influential judge yet his own father struggled financially. Peters as a young man got a job in the growing railroad industry and worked his way up through the ranks to become an Engineer. After being offered a job in Georgia, Peters had to borrow money from an Aunt just to make the trip here. He helped to bring the railroad to what was then Terminus, and himself began buying land even though many people (including Peters) were skeptical that it would ever grow into an actual city. Much of the growth is due in part to Peters. He also championed the name Atlanta, even after it was already changed to Marthasville, by having it printed on a railroad circular "giving freight and passenger rates that was headlined: "Completion of the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to Atlanta." (Richard Peters Champion of the New South, by Royce Shingleton, pg. 24) The city officially adopted the name afterwards. In his comprehensive book Shingleton writes that "Peters stands without equal as promoter of Atlanta. His hand is evident in almost every urban promotion project in the city during the nineteenth century. He set the city on a path to greatness... Without question his role as a builder ranks him as one of the most important figures in the urbanization of America." (pg.4).
Peters was not only interested in growing a city, however, he was also greatly known for his interest in agriculture and farming. He bought a large amount of farm land in Northern Georgia but in 1855, along with his business partner Dr. William Harden, purchased the Downing Hill Nursery from William H. Thurmond (Harden's brother-in-law). "The headquarters for the new Peters, Harden Company, located on Fair Street, contained the salesrooms and plots for small shrubs and plants, while trees were grown in fifty-acre plots just south of present-day Grant Park." (pg.51) Fair Street is Memorial Avenue today, and from my research I believe the orchard was located here in the lot marked 42 (a brick factory was located here in this 1906 map):
According to my research, Harden paid the taxes for lot 42 in 1864. Peters was also a long time friend and business partner in the railroad with L.P. Grant, which perhaps influenced in part his decision to purchase land here. Robinson also refers to it personally as the "Rawlins' place, just south of Grant's Park" and you can see that a Rawlins still owned part of the land in 1906 (as well as the name being listed on older maps). This interview with Robinson comes from the book Richard Peters, his ancestors and descendants:1810-1889, written by his daughter Nellie Peters Black. I'm going to include here the entire passage from her interview with Mr. Robinson, as I find it fascinating to the history of the area and also personally to the history of my house. The book was published in 1904, close to the death of Robinson, while he was still living in this house presumably. She writes:
During the war Peters left Atlanta for a time, along with many others. Robinson then bought the business from him. Even though later advertisements would have the endorsement of Peters it seems that Robinson did not have the means to keep such a large business growing. Of course it also took time for many people to bounce back from the war and much of that booming business never did.
It's interesting to learn about Downing Hill now. I came across a piece written by Philip Mills Herrington titled Agricultural and Architectural Reform in the Antebellum South. Focusing mostly on the residence of the horticuluralist Dennis Redmond's residence in Augusta, Georgia known as Fruitland. He writes that its:
Herrington writes interestingly about a growing agricultural movement that was taking place in Georgia led by a number of factors, including changes in population, market crisis and erosion caused by the depletion of the soil from large plantations and deforestation. It was not entirely inspired by a desire to end slavery but instead to create a more sustainable practice of farming that could move beyond the reliance on a single crop system like cotton farming. The question was whether a more diverse agriculture industry in the South could naturally lead to the end of slavery and not just furthered prosperity while maintaining the practice of slavery? Some people saw this reform as a natural path toward slavery declining, while abolitionists argued that the South could not embrace agricultural reform without ending slavery first. Thinking of antebellum Atlanta in this context makes me curious because slave trading was a business here but with the growth of other industry and the fact that it was a city rather than a rural farming community you have to wonder whether it would have continued to rely on slavery as it grew? Of course that can't really be answered because the civil war did arrive and thankfully forced an end to slavery abruptly, leading Atlanta down a different path.
Before all that happened Redmond of Fruitland spent some time traveling around the South as a correspondent for the Southern Cultivator, largely visiting sites of fruit production in Georgia and Tennessee. This included a visit to Richard Peters (who was for the record a slave owner):
Herrington makes the connection between the influence of Andrew Jackson Downing and the name of the nursery "Downing Hill". From my own research of the Grant Park area before the Civil War I found an interesting assortment of what can be called "gentleman farmers". They were men who were largely involved in industry elsewhere but also owned farms and farm land outside the city in what is now Grant Park. They were not subsistence farmers and seemed to identify as horticulturalists and nursery men instead. This included Peters and Harden, William H. Thurmond, Thomas McDowell, and William P. Robinson among others. Some of them did own slaves and some did not, but the smaller farms they kept in this area did not rely on large amount of slave labor. I do think it's important to acknowledge that history though, and recognize the important roll that men and women of color played in this growing area. It's easy to find information on the white men who helped to grow Grant Park but the identities and contributions of both slaves and even white women go largely undocumented. I will share some interesting stories about both groups in some later stories about early Grant Park but that will have to wait for another post.
Because Robinson took over Downing Hill, and I knew from the 1906 map that he owned the land that our house sits on, I began with the assumption that the house was part of Downing Hill. While this helped me to learn more about Robinson and the fascinating history of the neighborhood South of the park, it wasn't accurate. In my next post I will share what I discovered from my deed research and from whom Robinson purchased the house and land here... which led me to finally learn its own fascinating history as well!
