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CHAPTER 13 Ghost Towns and a King 1783 to 1861

There is a small point of land just south of the Russell Reservoir where you can stand between the flow of two waterways, the Savannah and Broad Rivers. There, if you look closely in a clump of trees, you will see remnants of a chimney and wall and scattered pieces of brick in the fallen leaves and brush, all that is left to mark a ghost town called Petersburg, Georgia.

The rest of this once thriving community is now submerged under water and long forgotten. But Petersburg enjoyed a boom of commerce and population just after the Revolutionary War as the principal commercial center serving the area now included in the reservoir boundaries. Although Petersburg was outside the territory studied by Russell investigators, its history was intertwined with the area and its people.

Once the Revolutionary War ended and the threat of Indian raids also stopped, more settlers began arriving in the Savannah River Valley. However, for various reasons, the population in the reservoir area remained small. One reason was the skirting of the area by the main transportation routes, which crossed the Savannah River to the north and south. The main trails bypassed the vicinity because of the rugged terrain in South Carolina immediately to the east of the river. Petersburg benefited from this detour and developed where the major route into Georgia crossed the river to the south. Once the main towns of the region, such as Petersburg, developed some distance away, these communities attracted even more traffic and were soon dotted with schools, churches, and courts-the signposts of civilization that drew even more people.

Settlers who did build homesteads within the more isolated reservoir area, often soon left, lured westward by the promise of the frontier. By the war's end, the frontier was no longer the Savannah River, but was now farther west at the Oconee River in central Georgia. Soon, however, the Oconee would also be deposed, and a new frontier would arise, and so on, river by river, as pioneers pushed the border relentlessly westward in their hunger for cheaper and better land. If the best bottomland was taken along the Savannah and the Oconee, there would surely be more beside another river up ahead. When the nation was new, there seemed to be no limits to the availability of good land if people were only daring enough to pursue it-and lucky enough to survive the quest.

There were also those who left the region because there were already too many people to suit their tastes. Some settlers just didn't want to be close to anybody who might infringe on their privacy and freedom. Also, neighbors sometimes built fences, which were unacceptable to those who wanted their livestock to roam free.

But an even more prevalent cause for settlers to uproot themselves was the erosion created by their own farming practices. Land devoid of top soil and scarred by ditches and gullies quickly became common in the uplands. When farmers cleared trees, which they often did by the wagonload, they eliminated the forest leaf canopy shielding the earth against wind and rain. Also lost were the many tree roots that had reached broadly across the landscape, holding soil in place. Plows further loosened the dirt in flat, unprotected expanses. The terrain was unable to withstand wind and rain, which soon removed the fertile top layer and left ravines instead.

The area was so devastated that it became part of what geographer Stanley Trimble called an "erosional tinderbox." Uplands often began showing erosional ditching within the second or third year after farmers cleared away trees. Instead of repairing the damage they had caused, many farmers instead abandoned the land and set off to repeat their mistakes somewhere else.

Bottomlands near the river held fertility, and therefore farmers, longer. But even farmers with rich soil could still catch the itch to go west. As plantation owner James Henry Hammond, who lived near Augusta, Georgia, wrote: "I have been trying to get over my desire for a Western plantation, but every time I see a man who has been there, it puts me in a fever."

Prospective early settlers often sent only one member or a few of their family to the land along the Savannah River to assess the place's promise. If the scouts' reports were good, the rest of the family followed. In 1875, some members of the Rucker family, longtime residents of the Virginia town of Ruckersville, arrived in the Georgia Piedmont. John Rucker soon followed and helped found Ruckersville near the Savannah River, a town that became an important business center during the 1800's. John Rucker's son, Joseph, one of the region's early bankers, eventually became Georgia's first millionaire. A neighbor, Stephen Heard, also became prominent as Georgia's governor in 1781. He established Heardmont Plantation which eventually gave a nearby community its name.

Because of poor transportation between the Piedmont and the coast, and because so many families had ties to the Northeast, much of early trade probably moved back and forth to the Northeast over inland wagon trails. But any trade was minimal. In the years immediately following the Revolutionary War, the Piedmont consisted of a sparse patchwork quilt of small, irregularly-shaped subsistence farms. Class distinctions among the population were few, although some owned more land and more fertile soil. Small, independent farmers predominated, which suited the wishes of some governmental leaders, particularly in Georgia.

Georgia's British founder, James Edward Oglethorpe, had stipulated that slavery was forbidden in the colony. Nevertheless, slavery was already well entrenched along the coast of South Carolina by the time Georgia settlers arrived. Coastal rice planters were reaping enormous profits from their use of free labor, which stirred Georgians to want to share in the riches. Within 17 years, they won the right to own slaves, too.

The number of slaves in both states mushroomed, so that by the end of the Revolutionary War, Georgia and South Carolina each had Black majorities, which caused concern to some, including Georgia Governor James Habersham. He promoted policies encouraging small farms inland to counter the rising use of slaves. But profits were usually small, if any, on the early, small Piedmont farms. More often, farmers merely got by-growing corn, wheat, rye, and sweet potatoes. They often kept chickens and a few cattle for their own consumption, and sometimes grew tobacco.

Tobacco was the first crop to be exported from the upper Savannah River region, and it was tobacco which launched the short, but vibrant life of Petersburg. Dionysus Oliver, an entrepreneur from Virginia who founded the town, received the right from Georgia's state government to set up a tobacco inspection barn near the river. State officials wanted to encourage exports by enhancing the reputation of local tobacco, which prompted inspections to assure that only high quality leaves left the area.

The inspection station became the linchpin in Oliver's success with Petersburg. In the early 1780's, he care fully planned the town on land he owned, dividing the property into 86 half-acre lots. By 1808, he had sold every lot, as well as the rest of his surrounding 9,000 acres. Petersburg by 1800 included a doctor's office, a post office, warehouses, houses, and a public well. By 1804, there were at least nine stores. And by 1805, a newspaper, The Georgia and Carolina Gazette, was published to communicate items of interest to the growing population. But apparently the citizens weren't so interested after all because the paper failed after a year.

The town, according to one report, once boasted as many as 100 buildings. Commercial interests rather than residential ones dominated, and the lifeblood of the place became the Savannah River nearby because of its usefulness in transporting tobacco. Oliver's town became widely known as the place where tobacco was loaded onto Petersburg boats-shallow-bottomed keel vessels-then transported downstream.

The community's influence even stretched out of state with the election of two residents, Judge Charles Tait and Dr. William Wyatt Bibb, to the United States Senate. Less favorable, however, were some reports recounting an attitude of superiority among the "cosmopolitan" and "staid" Virginians in control of the town.

Not far away, two other towns-Lisbon and Vienna-straddled the same juncture of rivers as Petersburg, but neither was as prosperous as Oliver's brainchild. Petersburg had access not only to river transportation, but was also part of the stagecoach route south to Augusta, and another line that ran from Milledgeville, Georgia, all the way to Washington, D.C. Business owners, residents, and visitors alike must have foreseen only a bright future for the community, making its swift collapse all the more cruel.

An observer wrote in 1849 after visiting Petersburg: "This was once among the prosperous towns in Georgia, but it is now in a state of dilapidation. A feeling of melancholy and loneliness is experienced by the visitor when he remembers what the town was in former days."

Just as river transportation contributed to the town's success, it also played a part in its failure. Steamboats began coursing up and down the Savannah in 1810, traveling as far north as Augusta, which became more important as a result. But the big boats, capable of carrying much more cargo and passengers than the Petersburg keel boats, couldn't go past Augusta because of the many shoals in the river beyond there. Later, when the railroads came, the trains passed through Augusta as well, not Petersburg, sealing its doom. The town went from being in the center of activity to finding itself off the beaten path. Even the post office closed by 1855. Not even letters were leaving Petersburg anymore.

Like so many other places, Petersburg's depopulation was also a result of the lure of the frontier. Some of the community's most prominent citizens, who originally came from Virginia, couldn't resist the urge to go west, and moved to Alabama starting about 1810. An outbreak of yellow fever may have also occurred and further emptied the town.

But apart from these factors, the other major cause for Petersburg's demise was the advent of a new crop, cotton. Cotton changed everything. In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in Augusta, and soon the crop dominated so completely that people began calling it "King Cotton". The central sections of Georgia and South Carolina, including the reservoir area, became the main cotton-producing region for the entire country.

Unlike tobacco, cotton needed no inspection, and as more farmers turned away from tobacco to grow cotton, one of Petersburg's main reasons for existence disappeared. In fact, the development of cotton plantations decreased the need for towns generally because plantations were largely self-sufficient. Planters often built their own cotton gins and mills for grinding corn and grain into meal, and allowed small farmers nearby to use the facilities for a fee.

Before the Civil War, there was little other industrialization in the South because the wealthy did most of their investing in more land and slaves to work it. A few mills and textile plants not associated with plantations did exist in the reservoir area, but not many.

Petersburg was not the only community to disappear. Edinburg, Georgia, established by early Scottish settlers, also vanished in a relatively short time. In contrast, a few small towns were born during this period, mainly as supply centers for small farmers. Lowndesville, South Carolina, was such a place, and continues as a small community today. In 1823, the town was called Pressley's Post Office, but that was changed to Rocky River Post Office in 1831. Altered a final time in 1836, the town was renamed Lowndesville to honor William Lowndes, a United States congressman.

Lowndesville offers further evidence, in the story of one of its early prominent residents, of how quickly fortunes could change for the worse. The town's development spread out around a store operated by Matthew Young, who was also the postmaster after 1831. By the 1850's, Lowndesville had grown to include two general stores, a Masonic hall, a bank, and a hotel, which Young built to lure tourists. He had also invested heavily in a resort lodge at nearby Diamond Springs. But the spring's mineral water didn't attract enough visitors to be profitable, and the resort went bankrupt. Young eventually sold his hotel in Lowndesville and joined the parade west, settling in Mississippi.

The plantation, an idea originated in the Caribbean, spread to the rice paddies of coastal Georgia and South Carolina, and then proved ideal for making profits from cotton.

The cotton gin also spurred success because it eliminated the previous time-consuming and tedious process of separating seeds from cotton fiber by hand. The gin used steel spikes and brushes attached to rollers to do the job quickly. Now, great quantities of cotton bolls could be processed in just a few hours, instead of the days the same task used to take. Free of seeds, cotton then was sent to textile factories in England, where it was woven into cloth. Eventually, raw cotton also went to textile factories in New England.

The change over to cotton and plantations occurred steadily throughout the first decade of the 1800's, but not everyone was convinced to switch to the crop. Embargoes preceding the War of 1812, the war itself, and uneasiness caused by Napoleon Bonaparte's potential effect on the cotton market retarded the transition somewhat. Then peace prospects in 1814 sent cotton prices soaring. From a low of eight to ten cents per pound in 1808 and 1809, the price shot up to 19 cents a pound in the summer of 1815. By 1817, cotton was bringing 31.25 cents per pound, and the coronation was complete. Cotton became the indisputable king.

Slave holding also became big business, even as many Whites continued to leave the area. Farmers, discouraged by erosion, the need to continually clear new land, and poor profits, regularly left, while those who could buy more land and slaves stayed and became the society's leaders.

In 1790, the local population included many more Whites than slaves. Figures from Abbeville County, South Carolina, which includes part of the reservoir area, show what happened next. Between 1810 and 1850, the county's White population decreased from 14,407 to 12,604. During the same period, the slave population increased dramatically from 6,664 to 19,391. By 1850, in Abbeville County, 60 percent of the population was slaves.

While every county along the upper Savannah River didn't have the same high percentage of slaves, the trend of rapidly swelling Black populations was repeated throughout the region. By 1860 and the eve of the Civil War, Hart County, which includes the northern portion of the reservoir area on the Georgia side of the Savannah River, had a population that was 30 percent slave.

Among the most prominent planters and slaveowners locally was James Edward Calhoun. Sometimes a visionary, Calhoun had an exploring mind and was often willing to experiment. He was born July 4, 1798, to a family who had known the worst of frontier life. Calhoun's maternal grandmother was among those killed in an Indian raid at the family's first settlement in the region near Long Canes Creek. Calhoun's father, John Ewing Calhoun, grew up in the area, eventually became rich, and was elected to the U.S. Senate. When he died in 1802, he bequeathed to James Edward, still just a boy, substantial amounts of land and slaves.

By age 18, James Edward Calhoun had joined the navy. He traveled widely in the service, sailing the Caribbean and Atlantic Oceans, and the Mediterranean Sea, attaining the rank of lieutenant, and gaining some knowledge of three languages besides English.

Calhoun also accompanied a military mission into the northern frontier of the United States where he developed a life-long fascination with the Indians. Later, he sometimes fed his plantation slaves a dried beef called pemmican, which he copied from the Indians. He explained how to make the food in a letter:

In his early life, he spelled his name Colhoun, but later changed it to Calhoun for reasons that aren't known. Slender and of medium height, James Edward Calhoun was known for his erect military posture, even in old age. Early in adulthood, he developed into a prolific correspondent, and among those he wrote was his older cousin John C. Calhoun, a United States senator and ultimately vice president of the country. John C. Calhoun had tremendous political influence and is considered by many to be the intellectual father of the idea that the South should secede from the Union. He married James Edward Calhoun's sister, Floride Bonneau Calhoun, making the two men brothers-in-law, as well as cousins.

Throughout his military career, James Edward Calhoun's land was managed by paid overseers and family members, although he made some decisions via the mails regarding his properties. He also took several extended leaves to spend time in South Carolina. Although he was rich compared to most others, his plantation didn't prove terribly successful financially, at least initially. Like many cotton planters, Calhoun was often "land long and labor short", with never enough workers.

According to a team of researchers headed by Charles Orser from Loyola University of Chicago, Calhoun borrowed money every year to plant new crops in his early life as a planter. Consequently, he had to subtract substantial debt payments before any profits could be realized when crops were harvested. To reduce his debts, Calhoun's relatives tried to sell some of his land while he was at sea. How successful they were is unknown, but in 1827 his brother wrote him that, "…times are so dreadful that there is no possibility of selling any kind of property."

More bad news came in another of his brother's letters about the same time: "From present prices, I doubt it [the cotton crop] will do more than meet the current expenses of the plantation... . There must be a change of staple, or we shall be most of us ruined." Corn and cotton were the primary crops on Calhoun's land at the time.

Despite his brother's pessimism, Calhoun was far from ruin. The lackluster performance of his holdings in his absence, however, perhaps encouraged him to quit the navy and return to manage his estate himself. Then, too, he had already developed a fascination with the latest agricultural and mechanical innovations, interests difficult to pursue on board ship. His mother was also urging him to return to help manage her plantation.

He arrived on leave in 1830 and never went back to the navy, finally resigning his commission in 1832. By then, he was already throwing his considerable energy into running plantations. Calhoun read widely about the latest developments in agriculture, corresponded with many about new techniques, and was a keen observer. An early advocate in the Piedmont of crop rotation and fertilizer, which many of his neighbors ignored until later, Calhoun apparently thought many of his neighbors' ideas about agriculture were backward. When he returned to South Carolina, the young planter was quite distressed at the condition of soil on his land. In 1832, he wrote: "Being able, at last, to bestow individual attention to my affairs, I have commenced the improvement of my lands, which have been shamefully abused by overseers." He also wrote: "So little regard has been paid to resting the soil, that I find much of it inclined to bake or run together, though naturally a delightful mellow earth."

To improve his property, Calhoun threw trash and brush into gullies to help hold the soil and planted small grains in as much of his cleared land as he thought he could spare from producing cotton and corn. He further revitalized the earth by plowing in dead plants as organic fertilizer, a step he described useful "to impregnate" the land. To keep the crucial top layer from eroding further, he invented a new form of plowing, apparently a type of contour plowing that he called "Loxotising," a combination of Greek and Latin words meaning plowing obliquely.

Calhoun's first plantation was called Midway. Soon, however, he began shifting operations to a place known as Millwood. Apparently a combination of inherited land and acreage he bought beginning in the early 1830's, Millwood would serve as Calhoun's home for the rest of his life.

Eventually, Millwood stretched in a skinny band for about seven miles along both sides of the Savannah River in Abbeville County, South Carolina, and Elbert County, Georgia. The plantation encompassed about 10,000 acres and became Calhoun's place to fulfill his ambitious dreams, which featured the river in a prominent role. His idea was to use the shoals to harness the river's power to operate a manufacturing center which would supplement his agricultural income.

In July, 1832, Calhoun ordered work begun on the first element to make his vision come true. He would build a dam across the shallow part of the river in a spot called Trotter's Shoals, named after a man who owned the land before the Revolutionary War. The dam would help power mills Calhoun intended to build. But the construction didn't go well. By August 7, Calhoun had fired the man he hired at a wage of 50 cents a day to build the dam. Then, later in the month, the river rose and destroyed the dam, which Calhoun contended was poorly built. Eventually, though, he did succeed in placing a dam across the river to power various mills.

Calhoun's personal life is less well documented, but nonetheless has triggered many tales centered around romantic loss. He married only once, to Maria Edgeworth Simkins who came from a family that lived not far away. The marriage took place in 1839 and, from all accounts, was a happy union. The couple shared an interest in gardening, and in one of her letters Maria wrote to her husband about planting new shrubs along the walkway into the main complex at Millwood.

Calhoun, in a letter dated 1843, proudly announced to Maria that they now had a new structure for preserving ice-an ice house. Always eager to try something new, Calhoun possibly enjoyed cool drinks that summer with his wife while they talked about their various enterprises and dreams.

But by 1844, Maria Simkins was dead. By some reports, she died in childbirth. Her loss seems to have devastated Calhoun, who, according to local oral tradition, lost his religious faith and became a social recluse, the "Hermit of Millwood." Perhaps he regained some religious inclinations later in life because he apparently donated wood for an altar to an Abbeville church, but there seems little doubt that his wife's death hit Calhoun hard.

At the time of Maria's death, workers were either adding to the Calhouns' house or building an entirely new one, the record is unclear. According to local lore, a distraught Calhoun boarded up forever a house he associated with his wife, either the house they had shared just before her death or a new one under construction.

Some say the house Calhoun was building for his wife was either shaped like a boat or had boat-like characteristics. Perhaps this was the house he abandoned, or possibly their original home resembled a boat and he left it forever. Another version of the story has Calhoun responding to his wife's death by sealing up their former residence, with the furniture still inside, and moving into another house built like a boat. That is the account described as the "boat-house myth" printed in a 1933 article of The Abbeville Press and Banner:

Russell Reservoir researchers found no direct evidence supporting the existence of the boat house and concluded that Calhoun probably lived throughout the pre-Civil-War era in a home built for an overseer-but the legend persists.

Archeologists did find what they thought were the remains of the original house Calhoun occupied at Millwood. They uncovered a rectangular foundation, and concluded that if this was indeed what was left of the infamous boat house, the residence wasn't shaped like a boat, after all. The possibility exists, however, that the interior had nautical decorations or that the upstairs in some form resembled a ship.

While excavating the site of what they thought was Calhoun's original house, researchers found part of the original brick floor in what was once one of the two downstairs rooms. Over time, most of the floor had been removed, probably for use elsewhere. This house, once the focal point of power for a large plantation, was eventually abandoned and later used for storage, or, more probably, for trash disposal.

The boat house stories likely contributed to a reputation Calhoun developed as an eccentric. Energy others of his class often devoted to social activities with one another, Calhoun, after his wife's death, applied to Millwood. His experimenting continued and included trying to grow exotic plants and new varieties of more traditional crops. Calhoun planted oats, barley, red and white clover, rye, pecans, corn seed from Rhode Island, and "wild orange sprouts." He also tried growing various kinds of grain such as Haley, Malaga, New Holland, and Mexican wheat, as well as mulberries, peaches, grapevines, and holly. During most of his adult years, Calhoun also cultivated different tea plants from around the world.

Millwood's riverside location gave Calhoun a distinct advantage over growers who were far removed from the water. Except when the river was dangerously low and Calhoun was forced to use land transportation, he could easily ship cotton and other crops down the Savannah. Those who lived near the river, especially those like Calhoun who owned their own boat-landing docks, negotiated with boat captains for the best rates to carry goods down the often treacherous river. The river captains made the trip on the same flat-bottomed boats identified with Petersburg. The boats were about 70 to 75 feet long and five to six feet wide, with shallow bottoms dipping below the water only 15 to 20 inches. A single keel boat could carry up to ten tons or 80 bales of cotton.

The boats carried cotton to Augusta at a cost of between 75 cents and one dollar per bale. The price rose during droughts when the river level dropped, making the journey more hazardous. As harvest neared, planters and farmers intending to ship their cotton by water must have kept one eye on the river. If the water dipped too low, the keel boats-propelled only by the river and boatmen with long poles-were stranded. They couldn't make it over the shoals.

Planters, who were able, often sent cotton to market by wagon in dry weather and by boat in wetter times. Whether a reliable crew was available to ship goods at the right time also influenced the method of transit growers chose. Calhoun eventually surmounted the problem of boat availability by owning his own fleet. Under the best of circumstances, however, travel down the Savannah could prove perilous. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers surveyed the river in 1879 when conditions hadn't changed much since before the Civil War. The surveyors found that obstacles were numerous and "not infrequently quite dangerous."

Initially, there was little cooperation between Georgia and South Carolina officials about clearing the river. Prodded by public complaints and a mutual desire to see commerce enhanced, the two governments finally acted after the War of 1812, and their efforts succeeded, briefly. A government report in 1824 stated that the river had been cleared for passage all the way from the northernmost part of the reservoir area to the Atlantic Ocean. But silt and debris soon clogged the river again, and state governments turned their hopes for better transportation to the railroads. Railroads, however, were insignificant in the area before the Civil War. Only a poorly-financed rail line, described as "flimsy," flanked the South Carolina side of the area, apparently too far away to have much impact. On the Georgia side of the river, some people used a railroad connecting Athens with Augusta, but again, for most, the line was too far away to be practical. Road travel also was often difficult, if not impossible, because of poor surface maintenance and mud.

The lack of good transportation probably contributed to the Piedmont's loss of dominance in the cotton industry. By the 1850's, land along the Mississippi River and in western Alabama had deposed Georgia and South Carolina as leaders in cotton production. By then, cotton growing was also expanding into eastern Texas, with some of the planters further west importing their slaves from the upper Savannah River region. Cotton and slaves remained important in the area near the Savannah River, but poor transportation and short-sighted farming methods had taken their toll. Stunted growth in potential markets also was destructive. Buyers turned cautious as a nervous nation stumbled toward another war.

Chapter 14: From Cradle to Grave

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