How Roswell Was Founded

Mr. Roswell King lived in a town called Darien, & he worked for the bank there.

This is a picture of Mr. King.

During the gold rush in north Georgia, Mr. King made several trips, and noticed the good waterpower located here, as well as the healthier climate.

Because of this, Mr. King decided to start a summer colony to escape the malaria epidemic on the coast. He brought with him two of his sons, Barrington & Ralph, and several other coastal families.

These families were:

Major & Mrs. James S. Bulloch

Mr. & Mrs. John Dunwody

Dr. & Mrs. Nathaniel Pratt

Mr. & Mrs. Archibald Smith

Mrs. Elizabeth Hand

Together with Mr. & Mrs. Barrington King, these 6 families are called the “Founding Families of Roswell.”

Mr. Roswell King gave land to these families to build their homes, and invited them to invest in his business. 

This map sure would have been helpful when I got lost!

The Roswell Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1839, and most of the cotton was provided by local farms, including the Hembree family.

This wood-graving of the Roswell Manufacturing Company was done in 1854.

It seems the town of Roswell has never been without dogs; this is a photo of Ralph Browne King and his trusty sidekick!

Until Next Time!

Cherokees

Before my paws were on this earth, before the Roswell was founded by Mr. Roswell King, this was Cherokee land.

In 1833, this is what our area of Georgia looked like:

That little red dot is where Roswell is; it wasn’t on maps yet. As you can see, Roswell was completely in Cherokee territory.

There were 15 Cherokee families that lived in the area that is Roswell now, and they were mostly farmers, like my family was.

In 1828, gold was discovered in North Georgia-the first big gold rush in the country! This made the land in this area very popular; so much so that in 1832, Georgia held a land lottery for the supposed gold-rich land. Now, I have done a lot of digging around and I can assure you, I haven’t found any gold yet.

The Cherokee were told to leave, and in 1835 Georgia signed a treaty that gave the Cherokees land out west. By 1838, any Cherokee families still in the area were forcibly removed.

One of the last families removed from the area, and eventually sent to Oklahoma, was the Proctor family.

<-This is Ezekial (Zeke) Proctor as an adult.

He was 7 years old when his family was removed from his family farm, which was located between the forks of Four Killer Creek & Vickery Creek. Zeke’s father William is listed on a survey map from 1832.

Stay tuned for the next entry-How Roswell Was Founded!

Until next time!