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CHAPTER 17 Risky Ventures, Rising Waters 1876 to 1908

Investors who before the Civil War put their capital in slaves, now turned to other ways to make money, many of them with an eve to industry. James Edward Calhoun found himself in the company of other planters who were following the same path he had started long before, developing alternative methods besides farming to produce income. Planters began to keep offices in town so they could better engage in these new pursuits, their energy fired by a national surge in economic development in the late 1800's. Enormous fortunes were being made in the North as the Industrial Revolution took hold. Why shouldn't some of that same prosperity fill pockets in the South?

Enthusiasm may have overshadowed caution for some, who invested so heavily in new businesses that when those enterprises did not fare as handsomely as expected, they faced heavy losses, and even ruin. They underestimated how far the South had to go to transform from a predominantly agrarian society, and the error proved catastrophic.

Before the Civil War, industry in the reservoir area was largely confined to crop-processing mills, some of which opened before 1800. Picturesque and uncomplicated, these early mills were powered by huge wheels turned by the flow of a creek or river. The wheels, normally between ten and 16 feet in diameter, functioned in various ways. One type was called the overshot wheel. Water ran down a slanted wooden chute that ended at the top of the wheel. The water then spilled into buckets or against boards, called paddles, attached to the wheel. The water's weight and impact forced the wheel to turn, gene rating power.

The same dynamics were at work with the breast wheel, only this time the chute dropped water at the middle of the wheel. In the undershot wheel, the water collided with paddles near the wheel bottom. The construction principal behind these devices was ancient, dating back at least 2,000 years when the Chinese used paddle wheels to dump water from streams into irrigation ditches.

Before 1820, mills in the study boundaries didn't generate high profits; they were small businesses. The mills usually served farmers who brought their corn and grains to be ground, and customarily paid the miller with a percentage of the resulting meal. White Mill was apparently this kind of operation. Built sometime before 1820, the mill was probably designed to help attract settlers to the area. John McGowan was an early owner of the land where the mill stood, and perhaps was the builder. McGowan envisioned a town nearby, a place he called Alexandria, apparently to honor William Alexander, from whom he bought the land. A community did form there and, sometime after 1820, Alexandria became Edinburg. But the community never prospered and soon became one of Georgia's ghost towns.

The water wheel at White Mill, however, kept turning for almost 100 years, passing through a succession of owners such as William Cleveland, who bought the mill in 1857 for $1,397. Cleveland also ran a store, a blacksmith shop, and a ferry. He also farmed, reflecting both his ambition and probably the difficulty of earning much profit from only a single endeavor. Cleveland apparently was a leading figure in Edinburg's brief history. He died July 9, 1861, presumably while on his way to fight in the Civil War: "Just as the 15th Georgia regiment marched to the battle front he died with typhoid fever," wrote a reporter for The Elberton Star.

The mill's longevity was partly a result of its simple design, which researchers led by Robert Newman learned about through excavations, interviews, and document searches. To capture water power for the mill, big boulders were lined up to form a dam at the juncture of the Savannah River and Coldwater Creek. This barrier funneled water towards the riverbank where it was channeled into the bottom of the paddle wheel.

The wheel turned at the side of a three-story building. The first floor was made of granite blocks, while the other two floors were built of wood. If the mill was like many of its time, there was a wooden shaft inserted into the hub of the paddle wheel, and as the wheel turned, the shaft turned. The shaft then rotated another smaller, but still substantial, wheel inside the building. This interior wheel was ridged along its outside perimeter. Put another way, this interior wheel was a gear, which fit next to another gear that turned simultaneously and powered the big grinding stones that pulverized corn kernels into meal. Archeologists uncovered a large gear wheel, about two-and-a-half feet in diameter, at the site.

Over time, area mills became more sophisticated. In the last half of the 1800's, first porcelain then steel rollers replaced heavy millstones. By 1850, some shafts were made of wrought iron; by 1860, shafts were formed from rolled steel, making them lighter and more efficient.

Around 1850, the American inventor Oliver Evans conceived the idea of wrapping heavy conveyor belts around the shafts. The belts then could turn machinery on several levels in the mill. In addition, the belts sometimes carried grain from floor to floor, functioning like miniature escalators. His invention eventually led to many uses, spurring automation. Today, the same principal is evident in the automobile fan belt.

Evans was not alone among Americans of the time in devising methods to propel industrial growth. The flood of ideas for industry that began in Europe earlier in the 1800's was now raging much more intensely in the United States. New inventions were appearing in record numbers. Mechanics, millwrights, and tinkerers of all sorts tried their hands at making products more efficiently and profitably. But some things didn't change for awhile, including White Mill. Year after year, it kept producing cornmeal, and something else. Archeologists discovered remnants there of a still for making liquor, a not uncommon occurrence for the era. After all, two of corn liquor's main ingredients, corn and water, were always handy. Most stills associated with mills were placed in nearby buildings. What was unusual about the still at White Mill was that it was right inside the building.

White Mill, like so many others in the area, was destroyed in the great flood of 1908. Its long existence was a testament to its sound technology and good location near McGowan's Ferry, an important early transit point across the Savannah River.

In the 1820's, a new idea began to spread in mill design. Influenced by the work of French inventor, Benoit Fourneyron, builders did away with the big water wheels and installed smaller wheels, called turbines, placing them flat to the ground inside a confined space. Water, under pressure, was forced inside the confined space to drive the paddles of the wheel. Early turbines in the reservoir area and their box-like containers were almost always made of wood. James Edward Calhoun was an early, antebellum user of these turbines.

The Eureka Mill, on Beaverdam Creek, was eventually powered by this kind of turbine. Located in Georgia not far from the Mississippian ceremonial center, Beaverdam Creek Mound, the mill was built around 1820. Eureka Mill fit a pattern common in antebellum times because it was first associated with a plantation. Gristmills produced flour and cornmeal to feed the many plantation residents, and also ground grain for neighboring farmers. Eureka Mill, like White Mill, was destroyed by the 1908 flood. Before its loss, however, the mill passed through various owners, including William Mattox, whose story conveys how quickly an entrepreneur's bright prospects could tarnish.

Mattox, for a time, was a successful planter and businessman. He was associated with several mills, including one he named after himself. Born into a wealthy family in 1836, he attended the University of Georgia, then returned home to assume the role of a planter. By 1861, he owned 1,032 acres along the Georgia side of the Savannah River, north of Beaverdam Creek. When the Civil War erupted, he joined the Confederate army as an officer. It's unclear, however, whether he served only until 1862 or for the duration of the conflict. What is clear is that by the end of the war, when many were strapped for cash, Mattox was spending. Evidence suggests that sometime during or immediately after the war, he built a mill on his property near the Savannah and called it Mattox Mill.

By 1880, Mattox Mill contained two sets of millstones for grinding grain into grist and flour. Five, metal-encased turbines generated power in a manner similar to the way water pressure builds when a finger is held over the nozzle of a hose. The case around the turbine wheel funneled incoming water into a smaller and smaller space, before allowing it to escape. The added pressure helped spin the turbine wheel faster. The turbines at Mattox Mill could generate 100 horsepower, enough to grind 200 bushels of grain a day.

To get water to the turbines of his mill, Mattox built a dam from his land to McCalla Island in the center of the Savannah River. The dam, located about a mile up river from the mill, directed water into a broad ditch, called a millrace, where it flowed towards the mill. Archeologists excavating the millrace found that it was 30 feet wide in places, although erosion over the years may have contributed to the width. The millrace averaged about ten feet deep and was a mile long, and gradually sloped downward to increase water pressure.

Mattox sold the mill in 1889, apparently to raise money for a more ambitious project. The mill was just one of his successes. According to the Elbert County Tax Digest of 1886-1887, he had increased his land holdings to 3,414 acres, had personal property worth $24,222, and employed 40 people. Backed by these considerable holdings and encouraged by the arrival of the railroads, he was ready to tackle a major industrial investment.

Poor transportation and subsequent isolation had held back development of big commercial mills in the region. Also, farming, the dominant employment, provided residents with little cash to buy what factories might produce. But by 1889, major railroad construction was underway, encouraging investors like Mattox to expand. The rails could provide them with a ready method for sending merchandise to distant markets. And they faced no shortage of potential employees. With tenant farming's meager pay, many farmers, both Blacks and Whites, were eager to work in factories, if they could find jobs.

William Mattox and other prominent investors intended to capitalize on this ready labor and the area's principal crop, cotton. They purchased Gray Mill in Elbert County for $1,300, and renamed it Heardmont Mills because of its location near the small town of Heardmont. They planned to renovate this gristmill into a center for manufacturing various cotton products.

Mattox was company president, and John McCalla, son of George McCalla who suffered such financial woes following the Civil War, was treasurer. Other investors included John Grogan, who owned Eureka Mill, and Eugene Heard, descendant of Stephen Heard for whom Heardmont was named, and others. Buying machinery in the Northeast was one of Mattox's first tasks. He bought eight cording machines and spinning frames for 1,000 spindles. Newspapers of the day carried encouraging accounts about the project. According to these reports, the venture was experimental, but if successful, the mill would become one of the largest in the South.

Heardmont Mills opened for business full of promise in March 1890, but disaster struck only three months later. A bolt of lightning hit the mill, setting it ablaze, and the building burned beyond repair. The investors had no insurance. William Mattox suffered a devastating and unrecoverable financial loss from the fire. Other setbacks followed. By 1898, he was unable to pay his bills, and a New York life insurance company filed suit against him. Eventually, the Elbert County commissioners stepped in and sold most of his land. Not long after, in 1902, the life of a man once so successful and admired ended in a gun battle. He was killed by his son-in-law.

The textile manufacturing boom that Mattox had intended to be a part of did occur in the South, and the Russell area was caught up in the growth. But heavy silt accumulation-caused by persistent erosion-clogged rivers, millraces, and machinery, and led to high maintenance costs. The erosion also continued to promote flooding, which eventually proved much harder to overcome.

After Heardmont Mills burned, Thomas Swift, an Elberton businessman, and his two sons, William and James, bought the property. They built another mill about a half mile from where the old mill had stood, and called their enterprise Pearle Mill, in honor of Thomas' daughter. Thomas Swift, a Georgia legislator from 1896 to 1899, was an ardent spokesman for Southern industrialization, a cause he actively pursued on his own and tried to rally others to join. "I have been making yarn for weavers in Philadelphia and have had all that I could do," he once declared, adding, "That suit of clothes you wear is made of Southern cotton transformed into cloth worsted by the skill of a New England mill. Go into any store in the land and hidden under various deceptive names you will buy back some of the very cotton which you looked upon in the field last year."

Pearle Mill opened in January 1896. Built of granite and brick, the two-and-a-half-story building was at the end of a half-mile millrace. The mill began operation with 26 carding machines which disentangled cotton fibers. The fibers were then spun into yarn by 3,000 spindles. By 1905, the factory could produce twice as much cotton yarn as it did on opening day. There were now 8,000 spindles. Swift apparently hadn't been exaggerating when he talked of the potential demand for his products. Pearle Mill spun yarn, manufactured rope, made wadded cotton stuffing for furniture and mattresses, and produced other cotton products.

Entire families, including young children, often labored in the mill and lived in a small village called Beverly, which sprung up nearby. By 1908, Beverly consisted of 38 company-built houses, a store, a school, a post office, and a Methodist church called Henry's Chapel. The minister thought he possessed a divine power to heal illnesses, according to one account. Residents of Beverly also had their own community court to settle disputes.

William Swift discussed his employees in an interview with The Elberton Star: "Most of these people... too poor to own lands, were in a sad condition indeed. Unlettered, with no employment, suffering from adversity which seems to delight in visiting the poor, anything which would give them work was a godsend. We have quite a colony recruited from this class and they are today self respecting as any community of people in the land. They make all the way from $3 to $6 a week apiece, with plenty of work for every member of the family."

As to his use of child labor, Swift stated: "It is not in the economical interests of mill owners to have children under twelve or fourteen years of age, because they are wasteful and often in the way. The pressure to employ them comes from the families themselves and has been essential in the crush and necessity of new conditions."

Callie May Hudson, descendant of Stephen Heard and granddaughter of two investors in Heardmont Mill, remembered that the homes in Beverly were lined along an unpaved road, and that some houses had backyards extending "right down to the millrace." She recalled a large house built for the mill superintendent and another big one for the doctor who lived on the site.

Both Whites and Blacks worked in Pearle Mill, although Blacks were restricted to the lowest jobs, such as janitorial work; at least one Black worked as a cook for the superintendent.

Beverly residents shopped at a company store, and also at a pottery shed belonging to George Chandler. People at the turn of the century continued to make ceramic vessels for many uses-to hold molasses, lard, preserves, butter, milk, and whiskey. Chandler became one of the better known potters in the area. Born to farmers in 1853, Chandler hung around pottery shops as a youngster, gradually picking up the skills he would use to help earn a living. None of his four brothers learned how to be potters, but one brother, Oscar David, did help Chandler sell his wares.

A great-nephew, Raymond Chandler, Jr., who lived near Elberton, told researchers stories about the two brothers hauling pottery in a covered wagon on trips that lasted up to a week or more. They peddled the pottery house to house throughout the countryside, charging only pennies for objects that required hours of work to make. Nonetheless, these earnings were precious. The brothers were concerned about robbers, so they camped some nights in cemeteries where they were unlikely to be bothered.

By 1900, George Chandler had moved to Elberton where he rented a house on Factory Street. Making pots was Chandler's abiding interest, but his wife and children pressured him to accept a mill job to earn a steadier income. He, and three of his children, worked in the mills in 1900, according to the census, although his specific job couldn't be deciphered from the records. Millwork, however, didn't keep him from pursuing his pottery. "Dad was a dreamer," Evelyn Attaway, his daughter explained, "but Mom was a materialist."

Chandler used several shops over the years. Sometime during the first decade of the new century, he began pursuing his art in the brick cellar of a millworker's house just beyond the bridge that crossed Beaverdam Creek heading to Pearle Mill.

Like the Indians so long before him, he found the material for his ceramics near the creek where he dug up great quantities of clay. He hauled the clay by mule-drawn wagon back to the cellar, where he mixed in water. He kept the material moist by covering it with wet burlap until he was ready for the next step.

Chandler began making a pot by slapping the gray, white-streaked clay across a taut wire onto a table, a process his daughter likened to kneading dough. This process removed air bubbles and coarse particles, and made the clay smooth and consistent. Next, he formed the pots on a treadle wheel he pumped with his feet. After the pots dried, he fired them in a rectangular brick kiln. There was a peephole in the kiln that allowed him to check the progress of the firing.

Chandler made a variety of vessels-jugs, churns, bowls, pitchers, storage jars, and later flowerpots, which became his specialty.

When his wife died, Chandler stopped making pottery for a time. Eventually, though, he opened another shop, this time on the banks of the Savannah River, not far from Calhoun Falls, South Carolina, where he moved to live with a daughter. Chandler died in 1934, but residents retained his pottery long after.

Pearle Mill suffered the same fate as many other mills in the area. The 1908 floodwaters reached the mill's second floor, causing the costly machinery to rust. The owners declared bankruptcy, and the mill was sold in a public auction in May 1909.

After that, Pearle Mill operated sporadically as it passed through several more hands over the years. A holding company from the Northeast renamed it Beaver Cotton Mills, but the venture had become unprofitable and was permanently closed in 1928. That fall, the mill, which was heavily insured, was gutted by fire and declared a complete loss.

Although textile industries continued to thrive nearby, particularly in Anderson, South Carolina, the 1908 flood washed away most hopes for successful mills near the Savannah River within the Russell area. The river and creeks, the same sources of power that had propelled the businesses, bringing fortunes to some and bankruptcy to others, ultimately destroyed the mills altogether.

Chapter 18: The Last of an Era

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