Читать книгу Atlanta And Its Builders, Vol. 1 - A Comprehensive History Of The Gate City Of The South - Thomas H. Martin - Страница 13

In 1849 Atlanta began to be looked upon as a big town and an important town. It was the Mecca of the adventurer and shrewd investor, as well as home-seeker, and, as can well be imagined, the elements of citizenship were incongruous and conditions chaotic. This was but the natural consequence in an inchoate town, suddenly made famous. At the first municipal election it was seen that the issue of the near future would be who should rule, the respectable and moral element, or the semi-outlaw, sporting class. Indeed, this issue was raised at that time, though in a more covert way than at the next election. Jonathan Norcross had been a candidate against Moses Formwalt for mayor, and it was well understood, among the "rowdies," at least, that their greatest security lay in the election of the latter. Murrell's Row was solid for Formwalt.

Before narrating the exciting incidents of the Norcross election in 1850, it is best to note something of the progress of the community the previous year, and to consider conditions that made a conflict between the two forces inevitable in the next local political campaign. The completion of the State road was an event of 1849, and a very vital event in the early history of Atlanta. Commercially the young city was now unbound and free to give her feet the wings of Mercury. The increase in population was on the ''magical" order. By the end of this year it is safe to say that 2,500 people were numbered in Atlanta's population, and more than a hundred newcomers arriving every month. The amount of building going on was remarkable for so small a town in the East. Brick yards lined the outskirts, and the hum of the circular saw resounded through the environing woods. The place was full of mechanics attracted from a hundred miles around to get temporary work. Wages were good for that day, and employment to be had for the asking. In the residence portion of the town extensive improvement was in progress. Beautiful residences were going up on Marietta, Peachtree and Decatur streets, then the best residence quarters, some of them spacious brick mansions with classic porticos. The log cabins good enough for two or three years before were torn down to make room for neat frame cottages, and grades were established on the central streets and some preliminary paving done. The shipping interests of the town had become very large, and now that the Western and Atlantic "went somewhere," traffic by rail increased enormously.

In this year of unexampled prosperity and activity, a new paper was born in Atlanta, and its coming was a signal that the time was ripe for grappling with the law and order problem. The sheet was called the Atlanta Intelligencer, and its editor was that irrepressible reformer and divine, Joseph Baker, nothing daunted by the extinction of his Luminary. The new paper was owned by a joint stock company composed of Colonel Z. A. Rice, Ira O. McDaniel, Benjamin F. Bomar and Jonathan Norcross. They hired the Rev. Baker to edit their paper, and their purpose was soon manifest.

The town was by this time in a disgracefully disorderly condition, the authority of the municipal government being set at naught by the hundreds of "toughs" who had no visible means of support. As the time for holding another city election drew near, the alignment of the opposing forces was well under way, and the bitterest sort of a feeling existed between them long before the nominations were made. The Intelligencer thundered against the "Rowdy Party," and called for a clean sweep. A mass meeting of the "upholders of good morals and public order" nominated Jonathan Norcross as the candidate of what was called the "Moral Party," and the other faction nominated Lawyer L. C. Simpson, for mayor. To say that the campaign was hot would not be at all hyperbolical. During every day that it endured, one or more more or less prominent citizens were put "hors du combat" by the crudest exercise of the art of pugilism, and during much of the time, after dark, the town seemed to be in possession of a howling mob. There were over forty drinking saloons in the place, to say nothing of the groceries that dealt in ardent refreshments, and it goes without saying that they all did a land-office business while the great political war raged. While Simpson and his backers were turning their money loose in the bar-rooms, Jonathan Norcross and his friends, to emphasize the moral plane on which they were righting, treated liberally to apples and confectionery. The Moral Party held several big rallies at which the leaders denounced the corruption and disorder existing in Atlanta, and called upon the better element to rescue the city from rowdyism and vice. The Rowdy Party held no mass meetings, but an outlet was not wanting for their enthusiasm. Happily, the election passed off without any fatalities, resulting in the election of Jonathan Norcross as mayor of Atlanta.

It had been the boast of the most turbulent spirits in the Rowdy Party that "Uncle Jonathan" would find the town too hot to hold him, if he tried to execute his proposed reforms, and in more than one instance he had been threatened with personal violence. It was a part of the mayor's duties to hold police court, there being no municipal recorder at that time. Mayor Norcross had been in office but a day or two when he was called upon to try a burly ruffian who had been arrested for an affray on the street. Trouble was expected at the hearing, as some of the most dangerous Murrellites were suspected of plotting to do the new mayor harm by getting themselves arrested and attacking him in open court. The city government then had its headquarters in a second story room of the building afterward occupied by the dry goods establishment of John Keely. A large crowd was present to witness the mayor's first case, and a large part of the spectators were by no means sympathetic. The case proceeded with due formality, and as the evidence was conclusive. Mayor Norcross fined the bully and was about to proceed with the next case when the fellow suddenly rose from his chair, as the officers were advancing to his side to take him to the calaboose, and drew a wicked-looking bowie knife with a blade at least a foot long. Flourishing the weapon over his head, the prisoner loudly defied any man in the court room to take him and declared that he proposed to start a slaughter pen right there. At that he started to cut and slash right and left with his big knife, the crowd falling over each other in their frightened efforts to get down the stairway. Allen E. Johnson, the sheriff of DeKalb county, was present in the room, as were City Marshal William McConnell, and Deputy Marshal Benjamin N. Williford. C. H. Strong joined these officers in their effort to cope with the desperate man. As for Mayor Norcross, he quickly sprang from his old splint-bottom chair, and raising it high above his head in a defensive attitude awaited the attack of the desperado, having no better weapon. It was evident that the man was intent at getting at the mayor. Sheriff Johnson always carried a stout hickory cane, and in this emergency it stood him in good stead. He aimed a blow with his cane at the hand that held the knife, and a second later the knife was ringing on the floor and the hand in a fit condition for a poultice. Sheriff Johnson and Mr. Strong then seized the prisoner and, disregarding the scowling faces of his friends, who had not the nerve to carry out their conspiracy, hustled him downstairs into the street. By this time it was dark, court having been called late in the afternoon, and the prisoner managed to escape amid the jostling crowd in the darkness. He was never seen again in Atlanta.

The next day the town was at fever pitch of excitement, and everybody felt that serious trouble was imminent. Business was practically suspended, and the men of both factions gathered in groups and talked threateningly. There were several hundred unsavory characters in the Rowdy Party who, it was feared, would not scruple to raise a bloody riot, and the more timid of the respectable element were talking seriously of leaving town. Among the majority of the latter, however, the sentiment was strong for organizing a vigilance committee, if the machinery of municipal government was inadequate to cope with the grave situation. The next night the Rowdy Party took the bellicose initiative. In the village of Decatur was a small, ancient cannon, a relic of the War of 1812, which the townsfolk were wont to fire on Fourth of July and other occasions of public jubilation. This the "rowdies" obtained by some means, the next night, and planted in front of Jonathan Norcross's store, with the muzzle trained upon the building. They fired it off two or three times. but it was only loaded with sand and gravel, and no damage was done, save dirtying Norcross's porch. The outlaws left a written notice, however, to the effect that Mayor Norcross must either resign or leave town, or they would return and blow up his store. This lawless act was not interfered with by the city authorities, the marshal and his assistants keeping at a discreet distance, and none of the Moral Party showing themselves. But the next day there was no shrinking on the part of the good citizens. The mayor called a secret meeting of the council, which resulted in his issuing a proclamation calling upon all law-abiding citizens to form themselves at once into a volunteer police force to aid in securing the enforcement of the local laws. The response of the Moral Party was immediate and determined. Citizens assembled in front of the Norcross store with their guns and pistols, and all day the work of organizing them into a volunteer police force proceeded quietly. Trouble was expected after nightfall. The Rowdy Party also perfected a warlike organization during the day, meeting in force in a house on Decatur street, near where the Willingham building now stands.

The old cannon had been left in the middle of the street at the four corners, as a menace to Norcross's store, but the desperate "sporting fraternity" did not muster courage to return and put their threat into execution. Had they done so, a hand-to-hand battle would have been fought right there, for the Moral Party was guarding the vicinity, at least a hundred strong, and its guards and patrols were scattered all over the town. At midnight, there being evidently no danger of an attack by the Rowdy Party, a large squad of the volunteer police, under the leadership of A. W. Mitchell, was detailed to move upon the headquarters of the enemy in the building spoken of on Decatur street. There were several squads, commanded by leaders of well-known courage appointed by the mayor and council, and these moved upon other low quarters of the town where the rowdies rendezvoused. Before this show of courageous force the Rowdy Party dissolved like frost in the warm breath of the sun. Not a man, for all their former bluster, stood his ground, but the whole unsavory lot slunk like coyotes to their holes, except such as fell into the hands of the volunteer police as they were attempting to escape. Some fifteen or twenty rowdy ringleaders, however, remained in the Decatur street house too long, and when they attempted to flee, found the house surrounded. They were arrested, without offering any resistance, and conducted by a large armed force to the little calaboose, where they were locked up. As the place would not hold all the prisoners, only the worst ones were thrust inside and the rest strongly guarded in a private building.

The cases against the captured rowdies were set for the next day, and the whole town turned out at the trial, the street in front of the city hall being choked with people. One after another the offenders were convicted and fined to the limit allowed by the charter, and in default of the fine, most of them were remanded to jail. This broke the backbone of the "rebellion," though for several weeks unusual vigilance and energy was required on the part of the municipal authorities to preserve order, and the whole volunteer police force was not disbanded for some time. During the rest of his administration Mayor Norcross was not molested, but he received several anonymous threats through the mail and the feeling against him in Murrell's Row was dangerously vindictive.

The effort to reform Atlanta was genuine and in a large measure effective. Shortly after the exciting incidents related in the foregoing, the moral crusaders turned their attention to two pestiferous quarters of the suburbs, known by the pleasing name of Snake Nation and Slab Town. In these places, in particular, occurred scenes of debauchery and indecency that shocked the moral sense of the community. It seems that these pest holes were just beyond the city limits of that time, and that, in consequence, the city was unable to include them in its wholesome regulations. Thither the worst characters of Murrell's Row retired, male and female, and continued their depraved practices without the danger of legal molestation. Finally, determining to endure the disgraceful places no longer, a large body of disguised Atlantans moved against Slab Town and Snake Nation by night. The men found in the filthy huts were whipped by the "White Caps" and warned to leave town, while the abandoned creatures of the other sex were hauled nearly to Decatur, when they were allowed to go with a similar warning. The shanties of the two disreputable quarters were then destroyed by fire, and so complete was the destruction and effective example that the places were not rebuilt, or similar places built up again soon.

The city administration of 1849 was not regarded as bad, so much as weak. Good men composed it — men prominent the next year in the work of cleaning out the dives. It required a man with the boldness and rigid morality of Jonathan Norcross to give the reform movement the necessary official backbone. The mayor who preceded Mr. Norcross and succeeded Mayor Form wait was Benjamin F. Bomar, and the members of the council of 1849 were Jonas J. Smith, Ira O. McDaniel, P. M. Hodge, A. B. Forsyth, H. C. Holcombe and J. A. Hayden. The mayor who succeeded Mayor Bomar in 1850 was W. Buell, and the council over which he presided was composed of H. C. Holcombe, Joel Kelsey, P. M. Hodge, J. T. Humphries, S. T. Biggers and B. W. Roark. Before continuing the narrative of Atlanta's progress in the early fifties, it will be well to take some note of the routine municipal happenings of 1849 and 1850.

The office of deputy city marshal was abolished by the new council on January 18, 1849, and the salary of the city marshal was placed at $300, and he was required to give a bond of $2,000. Other salary and bond modifications were made at the same time. The treasurer was allowed two per cent, of all moneys received, and two per cent, of all moneys paid out, as before, and his bond fixed at $4,000. The compensation of the tax collector and receiver was fixed at three per cent, of all moneys received, and three per cent of all moneys paid out, with a bond of $4,000. The clerk's fees were to be regulated by the ordinances of the city, and he was required to give a thousand-dollar bond. The officers elected by this council were: H. M. Boyd, tax collector and receiver; German M. Lester, marshal; Oswald Houston, treasurer; John L. Harris, clerk. A. B. Forsyth and P. M. Hodge were appointed a committee on patrols. Councilmen McDaniel, Smith and Hayden were appointed a committee on streets. At this meeting Daniel Dougherty offered to macadamize "the street" for a distance of one hundred and forty yards, for a width of forty feet and a depth of sixteen and one-half inches, at a cost to the city of $700.

On the 7th of February council apportioned the tax for 1849, fixing a rate of thirty cents on each one hundred dollars' worth of real estate and merchandise. On the 24th of May it was resolved that the mayor be authorized to sell the hospital, provided he could obtain original cost. On July 30^th, a special meeting was held to consider the question of a plank road between Lynch's corner and the post-office. This road was to be twenty feet in width. At the same session, the clerk was required to regularly furnish the Intelligencer a report of the proceedings of the council. On September 10th the question of opening Pryor street was again before council, and it being evident that there was really a street running parallel with the five acres of land donated to the state by Samuel Mitchell, it was unanimously resolved that all obstructions be removed from Pryor street, and that the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company, and the Macon and Western Railway Company be required to remove any obstructions which they may have placed on Pryor street.

On the 4th of October it was resolved that a committee be appointed to make a contract with some landholder of the vicinity for a suitable graveyard for the city. The members of the graveyard committee were A. B. Forsyth, B. F. Bomar and J. J. Smith. On the first of November, the committee reported that they had inspected a number of tracts of land near the city, and that they had practically settled on the land desired, but that it was held at an exorbitant price. The committee was continued and instructed, if possible, to exchange the hospital lot for lands adjoining the graveyard then in use.

After the election held in January, 1850, the bonds of the officers appointed by council were again revised, that of the treasurer being placed at $5,000; tax receiver and collector, $5,000; clerk, $2,000; marshal, $2,000; deputy marshal, $2,000. It will be noticed from the latter item that the office of deputy marshal was restored by the council of 1850. Oswald Houston was elected treasurer; Hugh M. Boyd, tax receiver and collector; John L. Harris, clerk; and German M. Lester, marshal.

At a meeting of the council held February 8, 1850, the following resolution was adopted: That each and every person, at the time of taking out his license, shall give bond in the sum of $200, with two good and sufficient sureties, that he will not knowingly violate or permit to be violated within his retail house, or on the premises thereof, any state law or by-law of the city of Atlanta, without giving notice thereof to the corporate authorities of said city within twenty-four hours thereafter, and that the giving of such notice shall avoid the forfeiture. It was decided at the session on the 15th of the same month to have sidewalks built on every business street, eight feet in width, and property-holders were given permission to plant ornamental trees along the sidewalks. The new council adopted the Intelligencer as its official organ, upon the condition that the proceedings be published gratis. The editor, who was present, accepted the honor, and the thanks of the body was tendered him by resolution.

On the 9th of March, the committee on graveyard made another report to the effect that Messrs. Cone and Williamson agreed to give the city one acre of land and sell it four acres more at one hundred dollars an acre. The proposition was accepted, but upon a motion to reconsider, the resolution was withdrawn and the committee discharged. A new committee was then appointed, composed of Messrs. Hodge and Roark. On the 11th of March, the question of holding an agricultural fair at Atlanta, a pet progressive project of the time, was discussed with much enthusiastic interest. A committee consisting of Messrs. Luckie, Thompson, Hodge, Hayden, Ezzard and Bomar was appointed to solicit subscriptions to the lists which had been sent in by Messrs. Jones and Hayden. On the 5th of April the gratifying announcement was made that the subscription had been sufficiently increased to warrant the statement that the desired sum of $1,000 could be collected and presented as a bonus to the locating committee of the Southern Agricultural Association as an inducement to secure the annual holding of its fairs at Atlanta. In order to further assist the fair association and make its annual fairs a permanent attraction at Atlanta, council, on the 10th of April, passed a resolution that a conveyance containing ten acres, more or less, particularly described in a bond for title from Lemuel P. Grant to Augustus S. Rhodes, and known as the hospital lot of the city of Atlanta, be executed to the Southern Agricultural Association, to have and to hold said lot so long as the said association should continue to hold their annual meetings in the city of Atlanta, with a clause in said deed authorizing the officers of said association to permit the city of Atlanta to use said lot and buildings for other public meetings, so long as the citizens shall not abuse said property or privilege; said property, with the buildings thereon, to revert to the mayor and council of Atlanta, when said Southern Agricultural Association should cease to use annually the lot and buildings for the purposes designated in said deed of conveyance.

The Southern Agricultural Association did not see fit to accept the proposition of the Atlanta city council, in its original form, and there was considerable parleying between the two organizations. The fair people seemed to think that Atlanta wanted to exercise too much authority and reserve for herself too many privileges. The terms of the donation were modified, however, to meet the wishes of the fair association, under a mutual compromise. Referring to the matter at some length. Historian Reed says: "On December 10th, 1850, a communication was received from the Hon. Mark A. Cooper, chairman of the committee of the association, with reference to the matter of the fairgrounds, which was answered by Jonathan Norcross, mayor of Atlanta, on April 1, 1851. The substance of the communication of Mayor Norcross was to the effect that the mayor and council of Atlanta had. on April 10th, 1850, proposed to deed to the Southern Agricultural Association the hospital lot, containing ten acres of land, upon which the association should have the privilege of holding its fairs, upon the condition that the corporate authorities of the city of Atlanta should have the privilege of opening the grounds for the reception of other public gatherings, when the grounds were not in use by the association. These conditions were rejected by the association's committee on location, and the city authorities subsequently made a deed to the association with the condition only that the land, with the buildings and appurtenances thereon, should revert to the city when the annual fairs of the association had ceased to longer be held thereon. Thus the city authorities were excluded from the grounds, except in times of the fair, and then they had to pay an entrance fee in the same manner that other people had to pay to gain entrance to the grounds. This condition, taking into consideration the guarantee of $1,000 which the city had made good, was considered rather severe upon the city authorities, and was the cause of much dissatisfaction. Besides this, there seemed to be some difference of opinion between the association and the mayor and the city council as to the guarantee fund itself. Mayor Norcross was of the opinion that the city had performed its part of the contract by the payment of $750, the Georgia Railroad Company having paid $250, which payments together made up the $1,000 guaranteed. That the $250 paid by the Georgia Railroad Company was intended to be included in the guarantee, was certified to by W. W. Roark, Joel Kelsey and Stephen T. Biggers, of the council, and by Henry C. Holcombe and the mayor, W. Buell, on February 28th, 1851. Thus the matter rested for a considerable time."

On May 3, 1850, the new graveyard committee reported that they had been unable to purchase a lot within the limits of the city, owing to the exorbitant price at which the ground was held, but that just without the city line they had discovered a suitable lot, which could be purchased at a reasonable price. This did not satisfy council, it seems, for the committee was discharged and it was resolved that the mayor and the members of the council go as a committee of the whole to visit lots within the city limits that were believed to be such as were suitable for graveyard purposes, and particularly to the lot of Judge Cone, which the committee had had under consideration. On the 1st of June, a graveyard plot was finally purchased from A. W. Wooding, consisting of six acres, for which $75 per acre was paid. The new cemetery was called the Atlanta cemetery.

On the 27th of May council adopted a resolution that, in its opinion, there should be a public street on the west side of the public square belonging to the state, and which was properly a continuation of Pryor street, but for lack of means it could not be opened by the city at that time. On the 30th of August council passed a resolution pledging the city of Atlanta to take $10,000 of the stock of a plank road which it was proposed to build between Atlanta and Dahlonega, to be taken when the amount subscribed should come within $10,000 of being sufficient to build the plank road with the necessary bridges. The plan was to pay for this stock by issuing city bonds of the amount of $10,000, redeemable after ten years, and bearing interest at the rate of seven per cent. Another similar resolution was adopted, subscribing to the plank road to Jacksonville, by way of Altamaha. The terms were identical.