Roswell Mill

Founders The first mill was founded by Roswell King, a wealthy Connecticut businessman who had previously settled in Darien, Georgia, a small town on the state's Atlantic coast. It was this strict recordkeeping that made King especially suited for factory management. Construction of the original mill started in 1836. Roswell King owned slaves, many of whom had built his home and the original mill; however, the number of slaves his family owned decreased once the mill was operating. Barrington King and Ralph King, two of Roswell's sons, moved to the area to help run the fledgling business. An outbreak of the mumps and measles in 1847-8 left "over half the workers stricken and three slaves dead," likely due to the fact that the workers were living in close quarters and dark, cramped conditions. Structure of building Hydropower from Vickery Creek powered the mill, and nearby plantations supplied the raw cotton for processing. The first building was four stories high, eighty-eight feet long and forty-eight feet wide, though it was later expanded to 140 by fifty-three feet. A second mill was added in 1853, and in the antebellum period the mill complex expanded to include six different structures. ==Civil War era==

The Roswell Mills are best known for their role in producing supplies for the Confederacy during the Civil War. They made "Roswell Gray" fabric to be sewed into Confederate military uniforms. Confederate forces burned down the bridge that spanned Vickery Creek before he could get to it. Two days after the taking of the mill, General William T. Sherman remarked, "I have ordered General Gerrard to arrest for treason all owners and employees, foreign and native, and send them under guard to Marietta, whence I will send them North...The women can find employment in Indiana." The reference to the foreigners were made because the mill owners, apparently in a ploy to safeguard the mills, planted a French flag on the mills and put a French millhand in charge. Deportation of workers The taking of the mill was not just a capture of infrastructure. The Union troops took about 400 mill workers, most of them women and children, to Marietta to be sent North on trains. The lack of adult male workers in the mill was a result of their fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War at the time the mill was captured. All of the mill workers were charged with treason. Only a handful ever returned to Georgia. ==Postbellum developments==

After the war one of the cotton mills and the woolen factory were rebuilt. In 1882 a second cotton mill was built. During the Reconstruction period and the beginning of the 20th century, the Roswell Manufacturing Company underwent several important changes. In 1897, the mills began using steam power, which improved productivity but kept the mill dependent on Vickery Creek. At that time, the mill had 120 looms and 12,000 spindles. The company was purchased by Southern Mills in 1947. In 1975, the mill halted operations as a result of outsourcing cotton production overseas. The mill's recent past is far less recorded in history than its pre-1950 history. There is no readily available record of the impact of the mill's closure on the surrounding area. It seems that the mill lost much of its money-making power when the age of King Cotton had passed. Part or all of the mill was included in the Roswell Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. ==Current status==

The historic Roswell Mills are now under the jurisdiction of the U.S. National Park Service. The mills are considered part of the Chattahoochee River Recreation Area, a popular local tourist attraction due to its nature trails, running paths, and rich history. The appearance of the mills suggest that the focus has been on conservation, not preservation. A sculpture of a crumbling column stands near the mill as a memorial to those who were deported, and its inscription reads as follows: Honoring the memory of the four hundred women, children, and men mill workers of Roswell who were charged with treason and deported by train to the north by invading federal forces The monument was made public in 2000, following a rise in interest in the tragedies that surrounded the deportation, which had been largely forgotten in the aftermath of the Civil War. ==References==