A short history of Griffin, Georgia, part two

3. 1841-1865

The state of Georgia began on the eastern coast just south of South Carolina, specifically in the planned city of Savannah. Savannah was laid out by the Englishman, James Oglethorpe, as a military outpost against the Spanish colony in Florida. This planning, while intelligent in design, did not stop Savannah from being defeated twice in war: once in the Revolution and once in the Civil War. Nevertheless, from Savannah, Georgia spread south to the Florida border, the limit of Spanish influence at the time, and northwesterly away from Savannah toward lands originally inhabited by Native Americans in Georgia. As European settlement of Georgia spread out and away from Savannah and the coast, the permanence of this settlement strengthened with the technology developed and implemented in the Georgia frontier. Perhaps the best example of this was the establishment of the railroad.

By the end of the 1830's, the railroad system which began near the docks at the seaport of Savannah extended through the disappearing wilderness that was Central Georgia toward Macon. Macon was a growing town which provided a central market for the crops grown on the farms of the area in and around Bibb County. The establishment of the railroad line from Macon to Savannah allowed farmers along the way to transport their goods to the main port in Georgia which was Savannah. This technical and transportation system allowed farmers along the railroad to transport and sell their crops to others along the path of the railroad and on to the world that connected with Georgia through the port of Savannah.

However, another product of a Georgia farm added even more economic clout to the farmers of Georgia. Eli Whitney, a Yankee inventor sojourning on a Georgia farm, invented the cotton gin in the early 1800's, an invention which made the removal of seeds from the cotton bolls easier, thus causing the fruit of the cotton plant to become a more economical product for transport and sale to European countries hungry for the raw materials used for the production of their clothing and fabric. The advent of more workable raw material through ginned cotton created a demand which drove the price and the desire to cultivate cotton all over the southeast United States. Suddenly, every farmer in Georgia was cultivating cotton on every available acre of land. The ability to transport that cotton by rail to Savannah and on to Europe by ship made the allure of cotton production that much stronger.

The earlier establishment of slavery on these farms made the process that much more productive. Suddenly, farms were being established with greater acreage. Small farms were squeezed out by larger plantations which extended their economic power through more slave labor. Every element involved in the process created more wealth in the area. The banks of Macon, Georgia were accumulating greater and greater wealth.

In this environment, bankers and entrepeneurs in Macon and elsewhere bonded together and looked for opportunities to increase their wealth. One of these groups was headed by a Georgian who had fought as a soldier in the Seminole Wars in which the European settlers pushed the Native Americans out of Georgia, Alabama and Florida: Lewis Lawrence Griffin. General Griffin saw the value of the railroad to the farmers and planters and other citizens of the area. He and his partners devised a corporation which would extend the railroad further north into the interior of the state. General Griffin had plans for a community established at the end of his extended railroad. General Griffin would give that community his name: Griffin, Georgia.

Like General Oglethorpe before him, General Griffin laid out the lots and central business district of Griffin. On the stump of a tree near the center of his city plan, General Griffin auctioned off the lots in his dream city. A lot of the lots went to his partners from Macon. Others went to visionaries like himself.

Some of his land went to a business partner from Macon. Not too long after this, the son of this partner, who grew to be a poet, university lecturer and musician, Sydney Lanier, would be born and baptized in the First Presbyterian Church of Griffin. Around about the same time, the son of the Spalding County Clerk of Superior Court, John Henry Holliday, would also be born in Griffin and baptized in the First Presbyterian Church. Although both men would find fame in other parts of the country, both made their way back to Griffin as young men. Lanier would write his first significant piece of literature, the poem "Corn", on a farm in Sunnyside, just north of Griffin. The writing of "Corn" presaged his growth as a poet and marked his leaving of his birthplace to find fame and fortune at Johns Hopkins and Baltimore.
John Henry Holliday would go off to dental school in Philadelphia, only to ultimately return to Griffin to practice dentistry. Unfortunately, he acquired tuburculosis and went west to attempt a cure. It was later that the dentist from Griffin would find fame on the streets of Arizona.

As the railroad continued to bring wealth to Griffin and Spalding County, more settlers arrived by rail to seek their fortune in the new city. At the same time, more children born and raised in Griffin and Spalding County continued to make use of those same trains to go west and north to find their fortunes elsewhere.
Unfortunately, an economic depression which hit the country as a whole, ultimately adversely affected the community, and a lot of the luster that the community had found after its founding dimmed. A number of the new settlers left Griffin and went elsewhere in search of wealth and opportunity. Even General Griffin was forced to move his family elsewhere, away from his namesake community. The depression killed a lot of the allure of the cost of the railroad system.

Later after the country began to recover from the economic depression, the state legislature tried to establish a new east/west rail line from Augusta westward toward Alabama. The legislature considered running this line westward toward an intersection in Griffin. Unfortunately, due to the recent negative experiences of the settlers of Griffin with railroads, Griffin decided to forego the establishment of this nexus of the two lines and, instead, accepted the legislative establishment of "plank roads" throughout Spalding County. The legislature ultimately chose a spot further north for this intersection. Over time, the intersection of the north/south line and the east/west line became the metropolis of Atlanta.

The choice of Griffin to accept "plank roads" over the intersection of these railroad lines is often thrown out as an example of the backwards thinking of people from Griffin. The problem with this idea is that the establishment of plank roads in Spalding County actually promoted a lot of growth in the area for a significant time.

At the time of this choice between plank roads and railroads, most roads in Georgia outside the established cities like Savannah, Augusta and Louisville consisted of nothing more than the graded red clay, cleared of the trees and foliage. The roads were fine in dry times, but a disaster when rains and other precipitation washed them away. By laying wooden planks on the red clay roads, the roads became more stable and sturdy in all weather. With the advent of wooden supports, the local farmers and planters were able to get their cotton to the railhead that much easier. The cotton the planters cultivated became that much more productive to the planters. Wealth was increased.

One hundred and fifty years later, the choice to take the stable roads over the railroad intersection seems silly. But in that time the choice was a no-brainer. The effect of these good roads was instaneous and the wealth of Griffin and Spalding County increased immediately. At the time, the railroad choice seemed like quite a gamble.

I suppose that it may have been inevitable that a place of intersection of the existing north/south rail line with an east/west line, placed somewhere along the line, would ultimately be established. Wherever that intersection was established would probably become a great city someday. And the gift of perspective has a tendency to effect the way we look at things. Sometimes we need to look through the perspective of those who made the decision in the first place. I don't really think we can blame the citizens of Griffin for choosing good, stable roads rather than the promise of future wealth which they and their children might never see.

Nevertheless, transportation would continue to provide opportunities to the citizens of Griffin and would ultimately continue to haunt them when transportation opportunities went elsewhere. As the century progressed toward the inevitable War Between the States which would so adversely affect Griffin as it did the rest of the Southeastern United States, the combination of cheap labor (slaves), good transportation (by rail and plank roads) and a crop which seemed to thrive in the red clay of Spalding County (cotton) continued to grow the economy and wealth of the City of Griffin.

Of course, the end of the Civil War eliminated the prevalance of cheap labor and the ease with which cotton was produced in Spalding County. However, the land, people and amenities of Griffin continued to provide the opportunity for growth and wealth in the area.

It is important to note that several training facilities for Confederate troops were located in Spalding County. During the Battle of Atlanta, Griffin provided a number of hospital facilities for Confederate wounded. General Wheeler, a Confederate cavalry commander, placed his headquarters in Griffin, which allowed Griffin to avoid the destruction which a lot of communities in Georgia suffered when General Sherman waged his war against the civilians of Georgia during the March to the
Sea. Finally, Griffin provided some of the first units which fought for the Confederacy during the War Between the States. Clearly, Griffin provided personnel, support and importance to the political and economic dispute which led to the Civil War. They threw themselves into the war with stellar commitment and ardor. The end of the war brought them little but sacrifice, loss and pain.