The Marietta Paper Mill Company (also known as Denmead's Mill and Kennesaw paper Mill) - Incorporated December 19, 1859, by Marietta Pioneers William Phillips (later Col. Phillips of "Phillips Legion"), Thomas L. Waterman (1830-1867), John Rayford Winters (1824-1902) and married to Moses Whitmore daughter, Andrew S. Edmondston (1809-1888) married to a Cole daughter, Moses B. Whitmore (1798-1876), Judge Napoleon Baber Green (1816-1873) of the Baber/Northcutt Family, James Leander Bird (1849-1923), Saxon A. Anderson (1846-1914) and Isaac Parks Sewell (1837-1913) of Sewell's Mill.
The Mill was located in Northwest corner of the Marietta Square and to the east on the banks of Sope Creek. Today, the ruins at Sope Creek.
These ruins are the remnants of a larger manufacturing complex which drew on the waterpower that the creek produced. During the period 1850 to 1940, a succession of enterprises, from a (fully integrated) paper mill, twine plant, flour mill and hydroelectric power plant occupied an area of about one mile along the creek.
The paper mill at Sope Creek was run by Marietta Paper Mills of Marietta and included a mill, oil room, office, mill sluice (raceway), storeroom, dam, machine shop, pulp-grinding mill, warehousing and two people shelters.
The Daily Intelligencer of Atlanta printed a letter dated September 10, 1863, from Mr. A.S. Edmonston [sic]. In it, Mr. Edmondston pleads with the Intelligencer, letting them know that while they are the newspaper’s main source of paper, they can only send them so much due to war constraints. Edmondston writes:
"I have on hand a few bundles of paper, which I will ship you, and this will be the last for some time; for when we shall resume again I cannot tell. My hands volunteered in the Home Guard, to protect the country against raids, and are now called out to guard stores and prepare the defences [sic] of your city, I understand. In the first instance, at the commencement of the war, I was disposed to aid all in my power and encouraged two of the hands to volunteer in Confederate service. This left hardly hands enough to get along with when all were well.
Afterwards we lost two or three hands, and this left us short of hands, and one machine has only run when our hands have worked eighteen hours in the day.--We applied for the detail of the hands which has not been done, though the Government has been urgent for paper, and we have strained every nerve to supply. Shorthanded, we have done the best we could, and now all our hands are taken, of course we are obliged to stop."
Edmondston goes on to complain about the fact that while the Confederate government demands paper, he is short handed because paper workers were not considered vital to the war effort. Edmondston stated: “You know Paper makers are not to be had South, and are not like Shoe-Makers, and many other callings which give exemptions to so many thousands, and cannot be learned after the Conscript officer takes after a fellow.”
The paper supply became even harder to come by when on July 5, 1864, Union soldiers under the command of General Gerrard burned the Marietta Paper Mill, along with Denmead’s Flour Mill. The paper mill was rebuilt in 1865, only to burn again in 1870 and be rebuilt in 1871.[5] The mill struggled to survive the years immediately following the second rebuilding. The mills were sold at a public sale in 1873 and restructured as the Marietta Paper Manufacturing Company. In 1888 and 1889, a wood pulp mill and a twine factory were added to the site, respectively. Finally, in 1902, production at that location stopped.
First blog.... we will get it better... more to come.
ReplyDelete