MUSCOGEE COUNTY, GA - CLAPP FACTORY Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Gwen Bryan Ggbryan821@aol.com Table of Contents page: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee.htm Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm “VILLAGE NEAR COLUMBUS “DESERTED VILLAGE NEAR COLUMBUS GEORGIA WHERE FOR YEARS NO ONE HAS RESIDED “Columbus, Georgia, January 12. - (Special) A deserted village in the live and healthy State of Georgia, where vigorous growth instead of decay is the rule, is a rather queer institution for Georgia, and that one should be located almost within a mile of what is rapidly becoming one of the great industrial centers of the state, adds to the wonder and romance of the situation. “Fifty years ago there was on the Chattahoochee river, two miles above Columbus, one of the most prosperous manufacturing communities in Georgia. One of the early cotton and woolen mills of the state was in full operation there, and in connection with the enterprise there was a variety of other industries. The mills employed a large number of hands, and most of them made their homes in the little community that had grown up around the factories. The location was a healthful and romantic one, the Chattahoochee in its meanderings and cascades, with the lofty wooded hills on either side, affording a bit of picturesque and attractive scenery, and while the homes were humble, their general surroundings were attractive, as shown by the fact that some of the more pretentious houses are now used a cottages by people from the city in the summer months. Quite a good sized village sprang up, there being several rows of tenement houses. Most of the trading was done at a store operated by the company which owned the enterprise. There was a little village church and a village graveyard. Burials are still made in the cemetery. “The scenes of today are in the greatest possible contrast of those of a half century ago. The old factory is silent, its machinery dismantled and sold for scrap iron; the ramshackle buildings about to fall to pieces. With one or two exceptions, the tenement houses are all vacant, and are rapidly going to utter decay. There is not even a watchman over the property. The old watchman whose care was the big factory for so many years died five or six years ago and his place has never been filled. To tell the truth, there is hardly any need to appoint his successor. “AN OLD GEORGIA MILL “This old mill, now generally known as Clapp’s Factory, was operated before and after the war by the old Columbus Manufacturing Company. It was a considerable enterprise in its time, as evidenced by the fact that the company not only operated a cotton mill having 4,500 spindles and 150 looms, but had a wheat and corn mill, a machine shop, a cotton gin, and a wood working shop. The company had three large commodious dwellings for officers, stables and storerooms, and all necessary buildings for operatives. “Very fortunately this mill was not burned during the war, and this is rather remarkable considering the fact that the Eagle Mills in Columbus, just three miles away, were burned to the ground. The plant was greatly improved in 1867, and was operated for a number of years at a profit. The factory manufactured brown goods, sheetings, and shirtings at the rate of 7,500 yards per day. The waste was used for making cotton batting, and the lower grade waste for paper mills. For a number of years General R. H. Chilton, formerly of the confederate army, was connected with the enterprise. “The company was not so profitable in the eighties as the years immediately following the war, and in 1886 the property passed into the hands of the present owners, the Chattahoochee Falls Company. The old mill stopped running in 1887, and has not been in operation since. For the past thirteen years the improvements on the property have been slowly going to decay. In the first place, the machinery in the cotton mill was antiquated, and successful competition with the more modern mills became an impossibility. For one reason or another, new capital has not been invested to rehabilitate the property. The present company is simply holding the property as an investment; this company is not, strictly speaking, a manufacturing concern, and has not been prepared to develop the place on the scale which is deemed proper for the thorough improvement of such a property. As a matter of fact, the members of the present company have agreed to sell out. “The machinery in the mill was sold last year for scrap iron; the big four-story wooden mill, which is such an interesting reminder of early cotton manufacturing in this section, is now so frail that it cannot last much longer. “THE DESERTED HOMES “Equally as interesting as the silent manufactories are the deserted homes of the operatives. Some of them have already fallen to pieces and others are fast going. “Bank weeds now grow where once pretty flowers bloomed in neatly kept flower gardens, and altogether the change is so complete and suggestive that it is saddening. There is something almost uncanny about these silent cabins which once echoed with children’s voices. “THE BIBLE IN ITS PLACE “One of the most interesting institutions about the silent community, dead relic of a dead past, is the little church. It is almost as it was left when the village broke up, necessitated by the closing of the factory. The interior of the arrangement of the church suffered little change; the benches were in place, and even the Bible remained in its accustomed stand, up to a year or two ago. A stranger seeing the benches, pulpit and chancel, and above all, the big Bible, would have fancied that the church still had a congregation, had he not seen the thick dust on the floor and other signs that showed the place was entered but seldom. Parties from the city going out to see the old factory used to go the little church, and always wondered that there had been so little vandalism. “THE PLACE WILL WAKE UP In all probability an end will soon come tot his romantic state of affairs, however, for the new industrial spirit is sweeping up the Chattahoochee from Columbus. It has already chained the river at Lovers’ Leap, and built two big cotton mills just a little over a mile from the old factory, and that it will seize the Chattahoochee Falls property and put new life into the place is a foregone conclusion. There is every reason why this should be the case. At this point a natural dam of rocks extend almost across the river; the old company completed it by spanning a short space between an island and the shore, with a large dam, and had an immense available water power. The company owns land on either side of the river, and in this distance there is a fall of forty-two and one-half feet, and about 25,000 horse power.” ____________________ (Authors Name Not Given.) The Atlanta Constitution. January 13, 1901. p. 2 of Part II, 4 Cols. “VILLAGE NEAR COLUMBUS “There is a large cotton factory on the river nearly completed, which we hope to see followed by many more, which will doubtless be the case, as the falls in the river at the city afford the finest water power in the world.” Martin, John H. History of Columbus, Georgia. Thomas Gilbert, Book Printer and Minder. 1874, p. 176. pp. 149, Part I, Vol. I [Abstracted by Gwen Grant Bryan, November 25, 2002.] Pitts Theology Library, at Emory University,