Butts County GaArchives News.....Lamar's Mill May 14, 1897 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 June 26, 2006, 1:41 am Jackson Argus May 14, 1897 Lamar’s Mill That gentlemanly gentleman, Mr. J. B. Saunders, who is in charge of this picturesque and historic place is ever ready to give information that is at once interesting and instructive. One hundred and fifty yards above where the mill now stands once stood the first cotton factory that was ever built in Butts county. It was owned by a rich yankee by the name of Nutting. At the Nutting factory, in anti-bellum times, cloth of all colors was turned out in great quantities and of the finest fabrics. In Sherman’s march to the sea, his fire bogs applied the fatal torch to this magnificent property, actuated by the hellish design to persecute a subjugated foe, they caused the property in as ashes to flow where only waste waste waters were intended to go to the rich river bottoms spread out below. Only the day before this anarchistic arson was consummated Mr. Nutting had put in seventy-five thousand dollars of new machinery in an addition or extension to his building of which a single wheel never turned. All this occurred right in the face of the placid and smooth Ocmulgee, who was only giving her self freely to propel the man’s device, and only resented by an angry blush, as the made flames schorched the forest along her banks, and she is still running on inviting man to venture again. But many, many years before this occurred, yes, when each Sabbath was made hideous by the cries of the red man as his dogs chased the bear over the hills around, a man whose name is gone down unsung and unknown to this scribe, built a mill where the factory afterwards stood. He built it there for the very good reason that nature had built the dam. Conceiving that there was a dam by a mill site, he forthwith built a mill by a dam site, and out great-grandmothers baked ash cakes with the meal he made with our great-grandfather’s corn. Opposite this factory site, whose tremendous foundation rocks are still intact, out in the shoals are two of nature’s wonders. They are two pots or well in the solid granite as round as a compass could scribe, one of which is bottomless. They were no doubt left there when our Lord was crucified, as no sculptor could approximate their smoothness, his chisel marks would show that art had taken a hand. Except right at the mill, desolation now reigns supreme. Many houses mostly vacant, and in a semi-dilapidated state, marks the spot where once all was busy happy, families. But to modernize, the people there now are in high glee, anticipating the coming of a railroad, which will tie all this vast water power and find granite beds to the whole business world by the way of the Southern system. The old houses will be repeopled and new ones built for the great crowd of laborers who would flock there to undo the South’s hidden treasures. This great body of wealth lies nearly due east from Pepperton cotton mills, and a road could start at the McDaniel crossing and reach the place in a six mile run. There would be no grading to do worth mentioning as the level lands in line are already at grade points for miles and miles in a direct courser Jackson Argus – Butts County Week of May 14, 1897 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/butts/newspapers/lamarsmi1385gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 3.8 Kb