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Roswell is a city located in northern Fulton County and a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. As of 2008 the population is estimated to be 101,851. It is the seventh largest city in Georgia. A branch of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, a component of the National Park System, is located in Roswell at Vickery Creek.

History

In 1830, while on a trip to North Georgia, Roswell King passed through the area of what is now Roswell and observed the great potential for building a cotton mill along Vickery (Big) Creek. Since the land nearby was also good for plantations, his idea was to put cotton processing near cotton production.
Vickery (Big) Creek Dam

Toward the middle of the 1830s, King returned to build a mill that would soon become the largest in North Georgia. He brought with him 36 enslaved African-Americans from his own coastal plantation, plus another 42 slaves bought at Darien on the coast. He used the slaves to build the mill, infrastructure, houses, mill worker apartments, and supporting buildings for the new town. The African-Americans brought their unique Geechee culture, language, and religious traditions from the coast to north Georgia.

King invited other coastal planters to join him at the new location. He was also joined by Barrington King, one of his sons, who succeeded his father in the manufacturing company. Archibald Smith and Major James Stephen Bulloch were among the leading planters who migrated there to establish new plantations, bringing enslaved African Americans from the coastal areas. The Barrington King, Smith and Bulloch antebellum houses have been preserved and restored. According to the 1850 Slave Schedules, these three planters, together with the next three largest planters, held 192 slaves, 51% of the total 378 slaves held in Roswell District. Archibald Smith had a 300-acre (1.2 km2) cotton plantation. Barrington King held 70 slaves. He likely directed their labor both for mill construction and plantation work as he expanded the mill manufacturing company. Other planters also ran cotton plantations in the area.

The Roswell area was part of Cobb County, Georgia when first settled, and the county seat of Marietta was a four-hour (one-way) horseback ride to the west. Since Roswell residents desired a local government, they submitted a city charter for incorporation to the Georgia General Assembly. The charter was approved on February 16, 1854. By the time of the Civil War, the cotton mills employed more than 400 people, mostly women. Given settlement patterns in the Piedmont, they were likely of Scots-Irish descent. As the mill increased in production, so did the number of people living in the area.

During the American Civil War, the city was captured by Union forces. They shipped the mill workers north to prevent them from returning to work if the mills were rebuilt. This was a common tactic in Sherman’s plans of economic disruption of the South. The mill was burned, but the houses were left standing. The ruins of the mill and the 30-foot (9.1 m) dam that was built for power still remain. Most of the town’s property was confiscated by Union forces. Leading planters had left the town to go to safer places well before Sherman’s invasion. They may have taken many of their slaves with them, as was often the practice. Some slaves probably escaped to Union lines.

After the war, Barrington King rebuilt the mills and resumed production. While many freed African-Americans stayed in the area to work as paid labor on plantations or in town, others migrated to Fulton County and Atlanta for new opportunities. The South suffered an agricultural depression resulting from the effects of the war and labor changes.

According to the census, the population of Cobb County decreased slightly from 14,242 in 1860, to 13,814 in 1870. The proportion of African-Americans decreased more, from 27% to 23%. During those years, nearby Fulton County more than doubled in population, from 14,427 to 33,336. The effects of dramatic African-American migration can be seen by the increase in Fulton County from 20.5% slave in 1860 to 45.7% colored (African-American) in 1870.

At the end of 1931, the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression. The difficult economic conditions drove Milton County, Roswell’s neighboring county to the north (note: much of what is now Roswell was part of Milton county already), to merge in its entirety with Fulton County, Roswell’s neighboring county to the south. To facilitate the merger, Roswell was ceded by Cobb County to Fulton. Sections of neighboring Cherokee and Gwinnett Counties were also ceded to Fulton at this time to define the expanded and contiguous northern section of Fulton County.

Roswell is now one of the largest cities in the state; its population has increased most steadily in the last 15 years.