Tony Smith's Home Page

Georgia, USA

Bartow County: Etowah, Coosa, Alabama, Mobile Rivers

Lowndes County: Withlacoochee-Alapaha-Suwanee River Basin


Cartersville/Emerson, Bartow County:

Cartersville (mostly North of the Etowah River) and Emerson (South of the Etowah River) are located in North Georgia, in Bartow County. The area was in the path of the Blizzard of 1993 and Hurricane Opal in 1995.

The mineralization in the area is related to the Cartersville Fault. Prior to the 1960s, the area was actively mined by many mining operations.

Among the substances used in shielding tests at the detonation of the first nuclear fusion bomb

on 1 November 1952 at the Pacific atoll of Enewetak was Limonite (Fe2O3+H2O) shipped by Frank Smith (my father) from Bartow County.

During the 1960s, the steel mills in Birmingham and Gadsden, Alabama, began to buy their Iron ore from Africa and South America, and quit buying Iron ore from Georgia. Since then, there has been no active Iron ore mining. Interstate Highway I-75 was built in the 1970s.

Before he died, my father, Frank Dodd Smith, made some comments on the history of mining in the area.

Here is some general history of the area:

About 1,000 years ago, the Etowah Mounds were built on the Etowah River, just West of where Pumpkinvine Creek flows from the East into the Etowah River and just North of the Cartersville Fault.

About 1170 AD, the Welsh prince Madoc and his followers arrived in Mobile Bay on the Gulf of Mexico, and migrated up the Mobile/Alabama/Coosa/Etowah River system to the area of the Etowah Mounds, Ladds Mountain, and Pine Mountain.

According to a Mobile history web page) "...[at the time of]... 15,000 - 10,000 B.C. ... [t]he Gulf of Mexico shoreline ...[was]... located over 150 kilometers south of the present mouth of Mobile Bay. The present area of Mobile Bay ...[was then]... an entrenched river valley. ...[around 1701 AD Mobile, which had until then only had the Welsh of about1170 AD; the Spanish (occasionally since about 1500 AD); and the French (since about 1685 AD) as European visitors, became]... "... the capital of French Louisiana ... The capital of Louisiana ...[was]... transferred from Mobile to New Biloxi in 1720, the thence to New Orleans in 1722 ...[and then in 1763 Mobile was]... transferred to British dominion at the Treaty of Paris. ...[In 1780] ... Bernardo de Galvez ...[captured]... Mobile. ...[From 1781 to 1813 Mobile was]... under mercantilist Spanish government. ...[In 1814 Mobile was]... captured by the American General Wilkinson. ...".

Pine Mountain is on the Cartersville Fault, just North of the Etowah River at Allatoona Dam. According to A Preliminary Report on a part of the Iron Ores of Georgia - Polk, Bartow, and Floyd Counties, by S. W. McCallie, Geological Survey of Georgia Bulletin No. 10-A (1900):

"... The Hurricane Hollow Ore-Banks ... owned by the Etowah Company, is located on the foot-hills of Pine Mountain ... The most extensive workings ... was done before the Civil War ... to obtain ore for the Cooper Furnace ... on the Etowah River ... the Big ore-bank is ... on lot 465, near the end of a steep ridge, which extends down from Pine Mountain. ... Stalactitic ore

[Stalactitic ore is formed by mineralized solutions dripping from the ceilings of Caves.]

also frequently occurs; but it is limited in quantity. ... Immediately below the excavations on the hillside, are two old tunnels ... manganese ... is often found in this vicinity, associated with the iron deposits. The brown ore at the Big ore-bank frequently has a reddish color, and seems to be partly altered to hematite ... On the eastern side of the ridge ... are numerous other excavations ... cut after cut and tunnel after tunnel ...".

The Caves in which the Stalactitic Ore was formed may be analogous to Caves which:

According to an 18 October 2002 article by Lisa R. Schoolcraft in the Atlanta Business Chronicle: "... The Hinds family in Maine, which owned the land, commonly called the Etowah Mining and Manufacturing Co. property, plans to donate nearby 230 acres to the city of Cartersville for use as a nature park with trails, said Tony Smith, an attorney representing most of the sellers. The park will include Pine Mountain, he said. "The property was originally assembled in the 1830s for mining," Smith said. "It was the iron works that Sherman destroyed on the way to Atlanta. Mining dwindled away in the 1960s and we've just had the property. ...". I also donated my relatively small interest in the Pine Mountain property. Of the 6 individuals and 4 trusts making up the Hinds ownership in the Pine Montain property, all arranged to participate in the donation except for one individual and her trust, but those interests were even smaller than mine. It is ironic that a Hinds family ancestor fought in the Union army, was captured, and died in the horrible conditions of the Andersonville POW camp in southwest Georgia. Thus Pine Mountain, on which Mark Anthony Cooper flew the first disunion flag of the Southern Confederacy, was donated as a public park by a Union family.

Here is a view of Pine Mountain from the top of the largest Etowah Mound:

Here is a closer view:

Here is a wider view:

Here are lines-of-sight from Mounds A(4), B(5) and C(6) to Pine Mountain.

 

Early in 1540, near Augusta, Georgia, Hernando de Soto had been greeted by the Indian Lady of Cofitachequi, who was carried on a litter covered by a delicate white cloth, and was compared by one Spaniard to Cleopatra. She told de Soto that her people had little food and and had been afflicted by a terrible plague (possibly due to introduction of diseases by the 1526 expedition to South Carolina of de Ayllon). They took de Soto to their Cofitachequi Temple, with a roof of cane mats decorated inside and out with shells and pearls, at Talomico on a mound overlooking a river. De Soto repaid their hospitality by stealing the pearls from the Temple and kidnapping the Lady of Cofitachequi.

De Soto then travelled North and Northwest, so that his expedition may have been the first European contact with the the area.

As the Indians learned how the de Soto treated them, they began to plan resistance, but had difficulty overcoming Spanish armor and horses. Later in 1540, in Alabama, de Soto encountered the Indian leader Tuscalusa, and demanded slaves and women. Tuscalusa promised to give de Soto women at Mabila. When they got to Mabila, Tuscalusa's Indians attacked de Soto by surprise, inflicting heavy losses, but the Indians were defeated in the pitched battle by Spanish horses and armor. After Mabila, de Soto went further West to Mississippi, by which time the Indians had learned that hit-and-run night attacks were the best way to combat the Spanish horses and armor. In 1542, de Soto got sick and died, and the remnants of his expedition got to the Mexican port of Panuco in 1543. Before he died, de Soto concluded that the Southeastern Indians were not like the Indians of Mexico and Peru, because "... it was impossible to dominate ... men who were so free, and ... they could never make the Indians come under their yoke or dominion either by force or trickery, for rather than do so these people would all permit themselves to be slain.".

 

Lowndes County: Withlacoochee-Alapaha-Suwanee River Basin

According to Timucan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida Volume 1: Assimilation (University Press of Florida 1998) by John E. Worth: "... the Suwannee Valley culture is ... [t]hought to have emerged ... around A.D. 900 ...

... Suwannee Valley ... occupied much of the ... Suwanee River watershed, including at least the middle to lower Suwannee River valley and most or all of the Santa Fe River valley. ... Suwannee Valley populations seem to have been ... distributed across the landscape in localized groups ... generally situated next to important sources of water, including lakes, springs, or rivers ... due in large part to the "patchy" darstic environment of the Suwannee River watershed, aboriginal populations tended to live in widely separated community clusters ...[with]... only weak integration on a regional scale. ... the Hernando de Soto expedition ...[in]... 1539 ... penetrated the heart of the Suwanee Valley ... At that time, the entire region between the present-day Santa Fe and Suwanee Rivers and a substantial area to the west was apparently governed by two principal Timucuan chiefs ... Aguacaleycuen on the east [of the Suwanee River] and Uzachile on the west [of the Suwanee River, to] ... the present Aucilla River ...[to the west of which was]... Apalachee terrritory ... [T]hese two regional chiefdoms also persisted well into the seventeenth century unde the names of Timucua and Yustaga ... northeast of the ... Suwannee River watershed, the Atlantic drainage of the Okefenokee Swamp region, including the St. Marys and Satilla River valleys east and north of the swamp, was home to at least two important local Timucuan chiefdoms at the end of the sixteenth century - Oconi and Ibihica. ...

... Yustaga missions, almost all of which were probably established prior to 1630 ... included the towns of Potohiriba, Machava, Arapaja, Urihica, Chamile, Cachipile, Chuaquin, and ultimately Asile ... To the north, the interior chiefdoms of Ibihica and Oconi were also formally missionized during this same period ... Santiago de Oconi had always been spared from "all the contagions and sicknesses" ... due to its remote locations on the border of the Okefenokee Swamp ...

... Late in 1633 two Franciscan friars ... embarked on the formal missionization of the ... Apalachee province ... the missionization of Apalachee representd the establishment of a Gulf Coast terminus to Florida's first transpeninsular road. Apalachee had access to ports, and by the end of the decade maritime transport between St. Augustine, Havana, and Apalachee was a reality. ... After missionization of Apalachee ... the [Spanish] Florida conversion effort largely halted. ... the Timucuan rebellion of 1656 ... accelerated the ... restructuring of the Timucua mission province of the late seventeenth century ... English-sponsored aggression from the north ...[led to]... the destruction and retreat of these missions ... Timucuan refugees ...[spent]... their final decades at St. Augustine before the evacuation to Cuba in 1763. ...".

According to Marvin T. Smith of Valdosta State University: "... The best information we have suggests that mission Santa Cruz de Cachipile was founded around 1623, and was abandoned by 1658 following the Timucua rebellion of 1656. The inhabitants of Santa Cruz were removed to the present Gainesville, Fl area to keep an eye on some of the Indians who had rebelled (Santa Cruz was not part of the 1656 Rebellion). All of this information comes from research by John Worth. ...[ Santa Cruz de Cachipile was located near

 

Ocean Pond near I-75 in Lowndes County, Georgia. ]... Santa Cruz would have been contemporary with Santiago de Ocone. How much of a regular traffic between the two is unknown to me. Recent work by Chris Trowel suggests that Ocone may have been on Floyd's Island. ...".

According to a Georgia Historical Maps web page, this

is a map of Spanish Missisions in Georgia: 1526-1686. The terms Guale (on the map south of the Savannah River and north of the Altamaha river) and Mocama (on the map south of the Altamaha River and north of the St. Marys River), and the term Jekyll Island, are described on a John Worth web page as follows: "... the two chiefdoms of MOCAMA and GUALE inhabited the [Georgia] coastline during the early colonial era. Almost every modern published work regarding the scenic Georgia coast asserts that the entire Georgia coast (Savannah to St. Marys) was originally called GUALE (pronounced "wallie"). This is a myth, because in truth, there was no universal indigenous name for the Georgia coast, and GUALE was actually an Indian chiefdom which extended only from about the mouth of the Ogeechee River (just south of present-day Savannah) to the middle of the Georgia coast at the mouth of the Altamaha River (at present-day Darien). The GUALE province therefore only included the islands of Ossabaw, St. Catherines, and Sapelo (and their smaller neighbors), as well as the mainland estuaries and river valleys opposite these islands. The entire southern coast of Georgia was inhabited by a completely distinct chiefdom ultimately known as MOCAMA, which extended from the mouth of the Altamaha River all the way down to the mouth of the St. Johns River near present-day Jacksonville, Florida. The MOCAMA province included the islands of St. Simons, Jekyll, and Cumberland, as well as the mainland opposite them. Not only did the MOCAMA speak a totally different language (Timucuan) than the GUALE (Muskogean), but they also found themselves at war with one another during the 1597 GUALE rebellion, when GUALE Indians launched an assault on the capital-town of the Spanish-allied MOCAMA province on Cumberland Island. ... Despite various published sources which assert that Jekyll Island was originally called OSPO (a Guale town actually located originally on the southern end of Sapelo Island), or SANTIAGO DE OCONE (a Timucuan mission actually located in the heart of the Okefenokee Swamp on the mainland), or even GUADALQUINI (a Mocama town actually located on St. Simons Island to the immediate north), Spanish sources make it clear that there was no major indigenous name for Jekyll Island, apparently because it had no large or politically-significant towns, and only minor population. As a result of this fact, Jekyll was the only island on the southern Georgia coast that never had a Spanish mission, and the Spaniards simply used the name ISLA DE BALLENAS, meaning "WHALE ISLAND," in deference to the fact that the waters in this area were (and are to this day) important breeding grounds for Georgia's right whales. ...".

According to a web page about Stability and Change in Guale Indian Pottery, 1300-1702, by Rebecca Saunders: "... The Guale were among the first southeastern groups to come into contact with Spanish ... colonists ... Saunders traces the evolution of Guale pottery from the late prehistoric Irene phase through the Mission period ... paying particular attention to changes in execution and frequency of the fylfot cross - a stylized cross that is a symbol of Guale cosmology ... Although the symbol abruptly changed after the first Spanish contact, it showed remarkable stability through the Mission period ... Only after 1684, when the Guale were relocated to Amelia Island in present-day Florida, did the use of the cross motif decline ...". According to a Celtic Art Coracle web page: "... Fylfot is the old English name for the bent-armed cross ... ... I suggest to use the term, "fylfot" to refer to the motif in Celtic art. The fylfot is stock-in-trade in the iconography, sacred imagery and symbolism of both pagan and early Christian art.  It is a universal symbol, like the chevron, or the double spiral and S-scroll spirals of the stone ages throughout the planet. In Cro-magnon art, the fylfot is the basis of many maze patterns inscribed on goddess figurines. ... The Hopis still have great veneration for the symbol: the fylfot appears in petroglyphs that relate the myths of migrations of the first people, who are said to have spread over the surface of the earth in this pattern. These first migrants left symbols, such as the fylfot, along their route, which is as good a way as any to explain the global distribution of the fylfot  throughout the world from very early times. ...".

 


According to a St. Simons Island history web page: "... Protestants of France, known as the "Huguenots," were rebelling against the Catholics. The French queen ... reasoned that a colony in the New World could serve as a haven for the persecuted Huguenots as well as a base for raiding the treasure fleets of Spain. She selected Jean Ribault to head an exploratory expedition that landed at the mouth of the St. Johns River near present-day Jacksonville, Florida, in 1562. He called it the "River May," and as he sailed northward as far as Parris Island, South Carolina, St. Simons Island became the "Ile de Loire." Rene Laudonniere led a second expedition of three ships and three hundred colonists in 1564. They, too, landed at the St. Johns River, and immediately began work on Fort Caroline. ... Pedro Menéndez de Aviles ...[sent by]... Philip II of Spain ... landed forty miles south of Fort Caroline in August 1565. From this new base that he named St. Augustine, Menéndez attacked and destroyed the fledgling French colony. ... In 1586, Sir Francis Drake destroyed St. Augustine. ... From 1606 to 1655 the Spanish missionary effort reached its zenith as the Franciscan missions reflected a steady growth. San Buenaventura de Guadalquini was established on St. Simons, San Jose de Zapala on Sapelo Island, and Santiago de Ocone near the Okefenokee Swamp [on the east side, across the swamp from Ocean Pond to the west] ... Spain's failure to supply attractive and practical trade goods ... such as flints, mirrors, silver or brass ornaments ... gave the English the advantage ... in 1670 ... Charles Town was settled ... In 1686, the English settled Port Royal, South Carolina - the old Spanish outpost of St. Elena. The Spanish responded by destroying the settlement, burning the English governor's mansion, and threatening Charles Town itself. It was a final, futile gesture. ...".

By the 1740s, Oglethorpe had settled Savannah and the Georgia coast and was providing military support for English traders in the Cherokee area. According to a history book by Junius Martin, a German Jesuit, Christian Priber, was then active in the Cherokee area. Christian Priber planned to build a settlement in the Indian territory open to all fugitives, servants, slaves, felons. His design was "to bring about a confederation of all the southern Indians, to inspire them with industry, to instruct them in the arts necessary to the commodities of life, and, in short, to engage them to throw off the yoke of their European allies of all nations." Oglethorpe's forces considered Christian Priber to be an agent of the French seeking to alienate the Indians from the English traders, so they arrested him and brought him under guard to be examined by Oglethorpe. Oglethorpe found him to be an excellent linguist, speaking English, Dutch, French, Latin and Indian, and to have in his possession two manuscripts: a dictionary of the Cherokee language to be published in Paris; and a book entitled Paradise, containing priciples for a commonweath based upon natural rights. Therefore, Oglethorpe imprisoned Christian Priber at Frederica for life, and the remains of Priber and his books are now only dust.

The English became the dominant power in the area, with the United States of America succeeding to the English position of power after the American Revolution of 1776.

Despite the efforts of the Spanish and English colonialists, the North American Indian cultures did have effects on the culture of the emerging US nation. For example, the first words of the US Constitution,

We the People ...

are, as noted by David B. Kelley, a direct translation from the Iroquois constitution, which is 250 years older than the US Constitution.

Jedidiah Morse's 1796 Map of Georgia

showed that what is now Lowndes County was in 1796 called Tallasse. According to a Tallahassee web page "... "Tallahassee" is an Apalachee Indian word meaning "old town" or "abandoned fields". The Apalachee Indians lived throughout the panhandle from 500 through the 1600s. ... The Apalachee Indians left and the area became an abandoned village, thus it was called "Tallahassee". When Florida became a territory of the United States in 1822, both St. Augustine and Pensacola, the major cities in Florida at the time, competed to be the Capital. Unable to come to an agreement, it was decided to locate the Capital at a point between the two cities. Tallahassee's tall hills attracted the search party, and in 1824 the City of Tallahassee was created, with a log cabin capital was quickly built. ...". Perhaps "Tallasse" on the 1796 map refers the attitude of Atlantic/Savannah/Altamaha Georgians of that time toward much of South Georgia. According to a Wayne County, Georgia, history web page, "... Wayne County was created in 1803. The county boundaries have changed many times since the original "Tallassee Strip" (sometimes stated as Tallahasee and other spellings), a ... strip of land spanning from the Altamaha River to the St. Mary's River. ...", and, according to a Fort Gaines, Georgia, web page "... March 12, 1814 ... marked the end of the Creek War of 1813-14. This war in effect was a diversionary tactic fought at the same time that the War of 1812 was going on between the US and England. As cost of fighting the war, General Jackson demanded 20 million acres of land from the Creeks. ... The surveyors ... mapped the boundaries of a new territory they dubbed the "Tallassee Territory," and offered this area to the State of Georgia. The legislature initially refused it, calling it "a sterile and unprofitable land." ...[in]... the First Seminole War ...[in]... 1817 ... Generals Jackson and Gaines again were called on to quell the hostile natives. Jackson, without direct authority, marched deep into Spanish Territory ... At the end of the war, the Tallassee Territory was again offered to the state of Georgia and the state reluctantly agreed to accept it. Still, a minority report was filed stating that it would be unwise to spend the people's money trying to develop a country which God Almighty Himself had left in such an unfinished condition. Then, under an act of the Georgia legislature on December 15, 1818, the Tallassee territory was divided into the original counties of Early, Irwin, and Appling ... all the numbers of the various land lots were placed on separate pices of paper in a large container in the state capitol (then located in Milledgeville). Beginning in 1819 random drawings for the land lots were then sold. The cost of a drawing varied from time-to-time but was approximately $12. ...".

Irwin County was named for former Georgia Governor Jared Irwin. According to a web page: "... Irwin, Jared (1750-1818) Born in Georgia, 1750. Delegate to Georgia state constitutional convention, 1789, 1798; member of Georgia state legislature, 1790; Governor of Georgia, 1796-98, 1806-09. Died March 1, 1818. Interment somewhere in Washington County, Ga. ...[There was also a younger Jared Irwin]... Born in Georgia, January 19, 1768. Democrat. Member of Pennsylvania state house of representatives, 1811; served in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812; U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania 10th District, 1813-17. In 1817, assisted in the establishment of a short-lived revolutionary government on Amelia Island, Fla. Died in Fernandina, Nassau County, Fla., September 20, 1818. Burial location unknown. ...". According to an AmeliaNow web page: "... Amelia Island is ... the only U.S. location to have been under eight different flags.

 

According to an 1822 Anthony Finley Co. Map of Georgia,

the North West Corner of Georgia was Cherokee Indian Territory, but South Georgia west of Camden County had been ceded to Georgia and in 1818 the counties of Early, Irwin (including what is now Lowndes), and Appling (including the Okefenokee Swamp) had been formed.

According to H.S. Tanner's "Map of United States of America," 1834,

Lowndes County included the Withlacoochee and Alapaha Rivers, which combine with the Suwanee River of Lowndes's eastern neighbor Ware County (including the Okefenokee Swamp) to flow as the Suwanee River to the Gulf of Mexico. Its County Seat was then at Franklinville. By 1855 ( 1855 map from a Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia, web page )

Clinch County had been formed from parts of Lowndes and Ware Counties; Franklinville had, like the Spanish settlement at Ocean Pond, disappeared; and, according to a Valdosta - Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce web page: "... the ... county seat ... was moved to Lowndesville (the name of the town was later changed to Troupville). ...". According to a Wikipedia web page: "... Valdosta was founded in 1860 by residents of Troupeville, Georgia. Troupeville was a steamboat landing on the Withlacoochee river, but when the Gulf and Atlantic railroad was built four miles away, the inhabitants simply picked up the town and moved it to the railroad. There are still buildings in Valdosta that made the move. The now virtually abandoned Troupeville had been named after Gov. George Troupe. Valdosta was named after Troupe's estate, "Val d'Aosta", which itself was named after a mountainous region in Italy. Valdosta was once the center of long-staple cotton growing in the United States until the boll weevil finally killed the crop in 1917 and agriculture turned to tobacco and pine trees. The world's second Coca-Cola bottling plant is in Valdosta. ...".

Meanwhile, in 1829, the State of Georgia had passed an act incorporating much of the Cherokee Nation, declaring the laws of the Cherokee Nation to be null and void, and making it a crime to encourage any Cherokee to resist removal. The US Supreme Court declared such Georgia laws to be unconstitutional, but the US president Andrew Jackson refused to enforce the ruling. The State of Georgia initially designated all the land as Cherokee County, but by 1834, according to H.S. Tanner's "Map of United States of America," 1834,

a number of counties had been formed from it, including Cass County. The State of Georgia had distributed the land in the area by land lottery, in 40 acre lots where there was thought to be gold and in 160 acre lots for other land. The southern and eastern parts of Cass County (now known as Bartow County) were in the 40 acre gold lotteries. By 1838, most of the Cherokees (about 15,000) still remained, so General Winfield Scott (under US president Martin van Buren, who had been vice president under Andrew Jackson) forcibly removed them to Indian Territory in the Western US.

In 1837, Jacob Stroup, whose ancestors were iron workers in Germany, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas, built iron works in Cass County along the Etowah River near Stamp Creek, upstream from Pine Mountain. Jacob's son Moses Stroup took over the Stamp Creek iron works, and in 1844 Jacob built another iron works on Allatoona Creek, just to the south of Stamp Creek. Around 1846, Jacob Stroup died, and Mark Anthony Cooper (who was graduated from what is now the University of South Carolina, read law in Eatonton, Georgia, and there in 1821 began to practice law and lend money; and who was named for his great-great-grandfather Mark Anthony who around 1689 arrived on a British ship in New Kent County, Virginia, worked off his debt for passage, then opened a mill and trading post near the head of the James River, and whose grandson Thomas Cooper, grandfather of Mark Anthony Cooper, moved to Georgia after the Revolutionary War to get free land - see a biography, ), who as the States Rights Democrat candidate had lost the 1843 race for Governor of Georgia, bought a half interest in the Etowah River iron works. Cooper and Stroup expanded the Etowah operations and brought in a New York merchant, Leroy Wiley, as a one-third owner and as an open account supplier of wholesale goods. Stroup had insufficient credit to carry the debts of the expanding operation, so Stroup was pushed out and Cooper took over the Stroup one-third interest. Around 1852 Wiley called on Cooper to pay the growing debt of the Etowah operations. When Cooper could not pay, Wiley turned the Etowah operations over to Cooper and demanded full debt payment within 3 years. Cooper paid the debt by borrowing $100,000 from friends in the area.

In 1860, Cooper as the sole owner of the Etowah operations investigated arms manufacturing techniques in Whitneyville, Connecticut, and proposed to the Governor of Georgia that the Etowah operations could manufacture arms for Georgia and other states. Even before the 1860 USA presidential election, won by Lincoln, Cooper's son put on Pine Mountain (which Cooper called Mount Anthony) "the first disunion flag of the Southern Confederacy".

According to a Henry Repeating Arms Company web page: "... Benjamin Tyler Henry ... conceived the first practical, lever action repeating rifle. Patented in 1860, the Henry gave a single man the firepower of a dozen marksmen armed with muzzle-loading muskets. ... The original Henry factory [was] in New Haven, Connecticut. ...".

When Cooper was investigating arms manufacturing in Connecticut, he apparently overlooked the importance of the 1860 Henry, and by failing to produce similar arms for the Confederate army, Cooper helped doom the Confederate cause.

However, the US Army's Ordinance Department duplicated Cooper's error, thus lengthening the Civil War: According to a Weapons of the Civil War web page: "... Repeating rifles had been invented prior to the beginning of hostilities, but the US Army's Ordinance Dept dismissed the new inventions because it was thought that troops would waste ammunition and the operating mechanisms might be a maintenance problem. Instead, the Ordinance Dept put its faith in the single-shot muzzle-loading rifled musket ... It was not until late 1863 that many federal soldiers received army issued repeating rifles ... such as ...[the 1860]... Henry rifle ...".

According to The University of Georgia Libraries, "... Governor Joseph Brown of Georgia called for a special election to be held on January 2, 1861 to choose delegates to a state convention to decide if the state should secede. The secessionist forces won the election by a vote of 50,243 to 37,123 and controlled the majority of the 301 delegates that met in Milledgeville on January 16, 1861. The secessionists forces were led by Gov. Brown, the Howell brothers, T. R.R. Cobb and Robert Toombs. Alexander Stephens, the United States Senator from Georgia, led the opposition. ... On January 19, 1861, the formal Ordinance of Secession ... passed by a vote of 208 to 89, and Georgia dissolved its ties with the Union. ...". However, according to an article by Randy Golden in About North Georgia, "... Voting for politicians who are either in favor of "immediate secession" or "co-operationist," the people of Georgia go to the polls across the state. In north Georgia the areas near larger cities are for immediate secession. Floyd County, the area around Rome, votes 3 to 2 in favor of secession. Clarke County, the area around Athens, votes 3 to 1 in favor of secession. However, Murray County was more typical of north Georgia. They vote 3 to 1 in favor of the co-operationist candidate. ... Until the 1970's the vote for secession had been listed as 50,243 in favor of secession to 37,123 against. In 1972 the Georgia Historical Society attempted to recreate the vote because of abnormalities that had been noticed in some counties. For example, Forsyth and Cobb Counties showed a higher vote count than for the hotly contested presidential elections two months previous, an unlikely scenerio. Using contemporary sources, mostly local newspapers, the society concluded that the margin for the vote was razor-thin, and it was a vote against secession. The final vote on January 2, 1861 was 42,744 in favor of co-operation and 41,717 in favor of immediate secession. ...". According to the History of Bartow County, Georgia - Formerly Cass - "... Cass went overwhelmingly against disunion at the State Convention on January 16, 1861. The three representatives, Turner H. Trippe, H. F. Price, and W. T. Wofford, from this [Cass] county voted "nay" on every vote cast, but as loyal Georgians they accepted the situation and at once volunteered for Confederate service. It was the irony of fate that Cass should suffer more than any other county in north Georgia during the years of '64-'65. ...".

Following the vote of the convention (shown county by county on this map

modified from an Encyclopaedia Britannica map. The map does not show data for all counties, so I have added the Cass County vote for union. Note that Lowndes County (Withlacoochee and Alapaha Rivers) voted for secession, but its eastern neighbor Clinch (formerly part of Ware) (Suwanee River and Okefenokee Swamp) voted for union. rather than the vote of the people, Georgia joined the Confederate States of America.

Acccording to a 26 April 2003 AP article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "... The Georgia Legislature approved a new state flag ...

... Next March [2004], Georgia voters will choose between ...[it]... and the current Georgia flag. ...". Acccording to a 9 April 2003 article by Jim Galloway and Carlos Campos in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "...[The]... new state flag ...[is]... based on the first national banner of the Confederacy, commonly referred to as the "Stars and Bars." ...[ plus the state seal, the words "In God We Trust", and a 13th star ]... The ... action almost certainly means a limited life for [ the current state flag, ] the blue state banner

raised in 2001, by an act of the Legislature at the insistence of Gov. Roy Barnes [who was defeated by Gov. Sonny Perdue in November 2002] ...".

 

In 1862, the CSA War Department paid Mark Anthony Cooper $400,000 in CSA bonds for the Etowah Manufacturing and Mining Company, which was transferred to Quimby & Robinson of Memphis, Tennessee. Cooper, who retained about 200 acres on the Etowah River as his home farm, paid his debts with some of the CSA bonds, and had over $200,000 CSA remaining for himself.

In 1864, USA General William Tecumseh Sherman destroyed the Etowah operations on his way

(War Is Hell, painting by Mort Kunstler, 2001, Booth Westen Art Museum)

to Atlanta. According to a Henry Repeating Arms Company web page: "... With its reliable .44 caliber rimfire metallic cartridge, the [1860] Henry [lever-action repeating rifle] produced a rapid and highly accurate fire. ... The incredible firepower unleashed by the Henry is evident in [Union] Major William Ludlow's account of the [1864] Battle of Al[la]toona Pass. ...

[ detail from Allatoona Pass, painting by Don Troiani, Booth Westen Art Museum - note use of bandanna to hold hot metal barrel-magazine - It was not until 1866 that an insulating wooden stock was added under the barrel-magazine. ]

... "What saved us that day was the fact that we had a number of Henry rifles," wrote Major Ludlow. "This company of 16 shooters sprang to the parapet and poured out such a multiplied, rapid and deadly fire, that no men could stand in front of it and no serious effort was made thereafter to take the fort by assault." .... After an encounter with the 7th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, which had the good fortune to be armed with Henrys, one Confederate officer is credited with the phrase, "It's a rifle that you could load on Sunday and shoot all week long." ...".

Had Leroy Wiley, the New York merchant, seen the Civil War coming and cashed out for USA dollars during 1852-55 ?

On 26 April 1865, Confederate Gen. Johnston surrendered the CSA forces of Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas to USA Gen. Sherman, effectively ending the American Civil War.

Cooper's $200,000 in CSA bonds became worthless.

According to a biography, Cooper "... turned to the public sector for a job. ...", and later became a Georgia State Senator.

Post-war bitterness led to Cass County (named for Lewis Cass, a Unionist from Michigan) being renamed Bartow County, for Francis Stebbins Bartow of Savannah (a lawyer educated at the University of Georgia and Yale Law School) who was killed by a rifle shot at the first Battle of Manassas in July 1861.

After the Civil War, through World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and into the 1960s, the area was actively mined.

Among the substances used in shielding tests at the detonation of the first nuclear fusion bomb on 1 November 1952 at the Pacific atoll of Enewetak at the Pacific atoll of Enewetak was Limonite (Fe2O3+H2O) shipped by Frank Smith (my father) from Bartow County.

During the 1960s, the steel mills in Birmingham and Gadsden, Alabama, began to buy their Iron ore from Africa and South America, and quit buying Iron ore from Georgia. Since then, there has been no active Iron ore mining. Interstate Highway I-75 was built through the area in the 1970s.

Before he died, my father, Frank Dodd Smith, made some comments on the history of mining in the area.

Geochemical anomalies indicate that the Iron and Manganese oxide and hydrated oxide ores that were mined near the surface are weathered residue of a massive sulfide body at greater depth. There are also indications that, at even greater depths, there may be deep natural gas deposits associated with the Appalachian Overthrust Belt.

The Southern end of the Property is at Pumpkinvine Creek near the Pumpkinvine Pivot Point of the Cartersville Fault, where the fault line turned Northward toward Tennessee after running Easterly-NorthEasterly from Alabama. On the Etowah River, just West of where Pumpkinvine Creek flows from the East into the Etowah River and just North of the Cartersville Fault, the Etowah Mounds were built about 1,000 years ago.

On this geological map

the Etowah Mounds are on the Western edge of the orange /////// cross-hatched area immediately North of the Cartersville Fault, and the Property is on the Eastern edge of the same area.

If you go upstream along Pumpkinvine Creek from the Etowah River, you go Easterly until you reach the area of the Pumpkinvine Pivot Point of the Cartersville Fault. Since Pumpkinvine Creek itself pivots and changes direction there, if you continue upstream you turn around and go SouthWesterly along a fault line roughly parallel to and SouthEasterly of the Cartersville Fault.

Volcanic activity marked the Cartersville Fault Pumpkinvine Pivot Point. It looks to me as though the volcanic activity was concentrated in the area from the Pumpkinvine Pivot Point at the SouthWest to near Tate in Pickens County at the NorthEast (on the map above, including but not limited to the bright yellow areas). The Pumpkinvine Pivot Point reminds me of Pivot Points between Island Arc Segments, such as today's Pivot Point near Denali at the end of the Aleutian Island Arc.

From its Pumpkinvine Pivot Point, the Cartersville Fault runs SouthWesterly into Alabama.

It runs Northerly along the Western boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains up to Tennessee, and then in Tennessee it runs NorthEasterly along the NorthWestern boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains.

The Pumpkinvine Pivot Point is the SouthWestern terminal point of the Great Smoky Mountains.

From its Pumpkinvine Pivot Point, the Cartersville Fault runs North into Tennessee until it meets the NY-AL Magnetic Lineament near the Southern end of the 300-kilometer Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone, whose seismicity from 1981 to 1992 is shown in the following figure from Science 264 (29 April 1994) 686-688:

On 29 April 2003, I felt the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone.

Since the SouthWestern end of the Clingman Magnetic Lineament is at the Cartersville Fault near Pine Log Mountain, North of the Pumpkinvine Pivot Point, the South-North segment of the Cartersville Fault connects the Clingman Magnetic Lineament with the NY-AL Magnetic Lineament.

The area around the Cartersville Fault between the Clingman Magnetic Lineament near Pine Log Mountain at the North and the Pumpkinvine Pivot Point at the South is known as the Cartersville Mining District.

From the Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone, the Cartersville Fault runs NorthEasterly into and beyond New York.

The Cartersville Fault can be traced to the SouthWest into Alabama, where it is covered by Coastal Plain sediments.

From a Global perspective, the Cartersville Fault is a prominent part of the Appalachian Mountains.

The earliest (over 4,000 million years ago) configuration of Earth's continents is not well known, but, according to a 25 March 2002 article by David Whitehouse on the BBC: "... Professor John Rogers, of the University of North Carolina, US, ... said: "Starting at about 1.8 billion years ago, all of the continents existing at that time began to collide into a single land area. ...

... I named the supercontinent Columbia because some of the best evidence for its existence is in the Columbia River region of western North America ...". ... Columbia began to break up about 1.5 billion years ago, and its fragments then moved around the Earth independently for several hundred million years. ... About a billion years ago, however, the fragments came together again to form a new supercontinent, dubbed Rodinia. ...

[A reconstruction from UTIG Plates Project)

shows the configuration of Rodinia.]

 

... This lasted until about 700 million years ago, before it too broke into several fragments. ... these chunks moved independently until about 250 million years ago, when yet another supercontinent emerged, now called Pangea. ...

... This began to break up almost immediately to form the world's present array of continents. ...".

Around 515 million years ago, the Iapetus Ocean began to open along the Eastern Coast of North America, the Appalachian Mountains began to form, and the number of life forms expanded in the Cambrian Explosion (see web abstract and links to figures from Ian Dalziel's paper Neoproterozoic-Paleozoic Geography and Tectonics, Geological Society of America Bulletin,1997, vol. 109, no. 1, p. 16-42).

 

The volcanic activity at the Pumpkinvine Pivot Point of the Cartersville Fault occurred during their formation. Here is an outline of the history of the Appalachian Mountains:

PreCambrian Eastern North America had some siliclastic sediments from erosion of the continental interior.

In the early Cambrian, seas encroached on the Eastern margin of North America, producing a huge Carbonate platform, somewhat like the present-day Bahama Banks, but much larger.

About 470 million years ago, in the middle Ordovician (the time of the first vertebrates, the sharks), Carbonate deposition stopped and was replaced by Black Shales and turbid sediments from the Taconic Island Arc lying to the SouthEast, somewhat like present-day Japan lying East of China and Korea, with Volcanic activity.

By the end of the Ordovician, about 440 million years ago, North America collided with the Taconic Island Arc, producing the First Cycle of the Appalachian Mountains and adding to North America the land of Southern New England. About the same time there was a massive extinction of marine life, probably caused by glaciation when the Gondwanaland supercontinent containing Africa, South America, India, Antarctica, and Australia, moved to the South Pole (which was then located in the present-day Sahara desert).

During the Silurian, from 440 million years ago to 410 million years ago, the First Cycle of the Appalachian Mountains eroded, and Eastern North America became flat and flooded with seas producing Carbonates and some Quartz sand.

The Second Cycle of Appalachian mountainbuilding began about 400 million years ago, extending through the Devonian (410 to 360 million years ago). At the end of the Devonian there was a massive extinction of marine life, probably caused by glaciation when the Gondwanaland again moved to the South Pole (which was then located in present-day South America).

The Second Cycle of Appalachian mountainbuilding continued into the Carboniferous (360 to 300 million years ago, when the first amphibians lived on land, as did lots of tree-ferns and insects).

The Second Cycle of Appalachian mountainbuilding involved the Avalon Isand Arc, which was similar to the Taconic Island Arc. Avalon's collison added Northern New England to North America. Avalon may not have merely collided with North America, but may have been caught between North America and the Western African part of Gondwanaland that had occurred by about 300 million years ago, a time of Volcanic activity at the Pumpkinvine Pivot Point based on dates of amphibolites of the Pumpkinvine formation, about 313 million years ago give or take about 10 million years.

Over the next 50 million years or so, up to about 250 million years ago, North America and Africa continued to be compressed together, much as India and Asia are compressed today at the Himalaya Mountains, and as Italy and Europe are compressed today at the Alps. One consequence of this compression is that the Southern Inner Piedmont metamorphic rocks were overthrust hundreds of kilometers inland over the fold-and-thrust Valley and Ridge sedimentary rocks. Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina, is a geological window where the overthrust rocks have been worn away by erosion, exposing at the surface the underlying older rocks. At the same time, there was Volcanic activity, igneous plutons were emplaced in the Piedmont, and the surface Valley and Ridge was being further deformed by folding and thrusting.

On the above section, Fig. 3 from Oliver's 1982 Science article, the Cartersville Fault is shown between the Valley and Ridge and the Blue Ridge.

During this period from 300 to 250 million years ago, the part of North America lying West of the Appalachians was, from time to time, covered by seas, and there was an Ice Age.

By about 250 million years ago (which was about one Galactic Year ago, since the Sun orbits the Milky Way Galaxy with a period of about 200 million years), the Ice Age ended, from 75 to 90 percent of the species and 60 percent of the families of sea life became extinct (the Permo-Triassic Extinction, caused by an Earth-Comet collision).

At the time of the Permo-Triassic Extinction, Siberia and Central Russia had become attached to Europe, which was attached to Greenland, which was attached to North America, South America, and Africa, which was attached to India and Antarctica, which was attached to Australia. All this land mass of Pangaea stretched from Siberia at the North Pole to Antarctica at the South Pole. Both poles were cold, sea levels were low, there were only small areas of shallow seas, and the land mass blocked ocean currents. All these factors may have contributed to the Permo-Traissic Extinction..

According to a 22 February 2001 BBC article by David Whitehouse: "... Atoms from a star trapped inside molecular cages of carbon ... (Image: University of Washington) ...

prove that Earth's biggest mass extinction - an event 251 million years ago - was triggered by a collision with a comet or asteroid. ...[ Science 291 (23 February 2001) 1530-1533 ]... The researchers believe these particular fullerenes are extraterrestrial because ...[ as the researchers say in their paper "... Fullerenes (C 60 to C 200 ) from sediments at the PTB contain trapped helium and argon with isotope ratios similar to the planetary component of carbonaceous chondrites. ..." ]... The telltale fullerenes were extracted from sites in Japan, China and Hungary, where the sedimentary layer at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods had been exposed. ... the fullerenes were found at very low concentrations above and below the boundary layer, but they were found in unusually high concentrations at the time of the extinction. ... Researchers estimate the comet or asteroid was 6 to 12 km (3.7 - 7.4 miles) across, or about the size of the asteroid believed responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs 67 million years ago. ... The scientists determined the size based on two factors - if the body was smaller than 6 km (3.7 miles) the effects would not have been global; if it were larger than 12 km (7.4 miles) there would have to be more gas-laden fullerenes distributed around the world. ... Researchers believe that the impact and rapid extinction occurred simultaneously with some of the most extensive volcanic activity the world has ever seen: enough lava to cover the entire planet with 3 metres (10ft) of it, oozed out of the ground in Siberia in less than one million years. These changes wiped out 90% of all marine species and 70% of land vertebrates. ... The mass extinction of 251 million years ago was the greatest on record. Many fossils below the boundary, such as trilobites, which once numbered more than 15,000 species, are completely absent above it. ...". According to a 22 February 2001 space.com article by Rob Roy Britt: "... the object that slammed into Earth 251 million years ago ... may have been a comet ... and hence left behind only small quantities of iridium. Comets travel at greater speeds, and if it were a comet, it may have been on the small end of the size estimate in the report. A small, fast-moving comet could generate the same destruction as a larger, slower asteroid. ...".

After the Permo-Triassic Extinction of about 250 million years ago, life on land began to be dominated by Conifers and Dinosaurs. About 200 million years ago, massive volcanic lava flows occurred in the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, forming what are now the Hudson River Palisades and parts of the Amazon Basin, Spain, and Western Africa. Over the next 150 to 200 million years or so, compression between North America and Africa relaxed and a Rift Valley (similar to the present-day East Africa Rift Valley and the southeast USA Sequatchie Valley) formed, separating them at their present-day margins and creating the Atlantic Ocean between them. Small Aborted Rift Basins, including the Newark Basin and the Connecticut Basin,

were also formed at that time. Volcanic formations of the Aborted Rift Basins include the Hudson River Palisades in the Newark Basin and the Sleeping Giant of Hamden, and East and West Rocks of New Haven, in the Connecticut Basin.

By about 150 million years ago, the continents looked about like this:

 

By 65 million years ago, South America, Antarctica, and India had also substantially separated from Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean extended from the far North through the Equator to the far South and was connected with the ancestral Indian Ocean. Also about 65 million years ago, the volcanic Deccan basalt flows occurred in India and an asteroid impacted the Earth in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Dinosaurs became extinct, and mammals became prominent land animals.

Shortly after the Cretaceous ended, about 50 million years ago, the Tethys Ocean began to close and the continents looked like this:

During the past 100 million years, Cuba moved from the Pacific Ocean to collide with North America near Florida. Now, Cuba is a tropical island colliding with North America, somewhat as most of Connecticut was a tropical island colliding with North America somewhat over 400 million years ago.

By 50 million years ago, Cetaceans appeared in the oceans, and by 20 million years ago, large-brained Dolphins appeared.

By 3 million years ago, the ancestral human Homo succeeded Australopithecus in Africa. Now humans can travel and communicate globally, so that in some ways North America and Africa are reunited as part of Earth's Global Community, which is evolving to resemble the noosphere of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

 


References:

Geology and Mineral Deposits of the Cartersville District, Georgia, by Thomas L. Kesler, Professional Paper 224, US Geological Survey 1950.

Mineral Resources, Economics and the Environment, by Stephen E. Kesler, MacMillan 1994. Stephen E. Kesler, who is the son of Thomas L. Kesler, has a web page containing links to sites with information related to each chapter.

The Southeastern Indians, by Charles Hudson, University of Tennessee Press 1976.

The Mound Builders, by Robert Silverberg, Ohio University Press 1970.

The Story of Christ Church, Frederica, by Junius Martin, unpublished manuscript.

Mark Anthony Cooper, The Iron Man of Georgia. by Mark Cooper Pope III with J. Donald McKee, Graphic Publishing Company, Atlanta, 2000.

History of Bartow County, Georgia - Formerly Cass - by Lucy Josephine Cunyus, Southern Historical Press 1933 - Addenda by publisher 1994.

Understanding the Earth, ed. by Brown, Hawkesworth, and Wilson, Cambridge 1992.

Life: An Unauthorized Biography, by Richard Fortey, HarperCollins 1997.

Extinction, by Steven Stanley, Scientific American Library 1987.

A Concise World Atlas of Geology and Mineral Deposits, by Duncan Derry, John Wiley 1980.

Earth and Life Through Time, second edition, by Steven Stanley, Freeman 1989.

Mineral Resources of the Appalachian Region, USGS Professional Paper 580, 1968.

Geologic Map of Georgia, Georgia DNR and Georgia Geological Survey, 1976.

Probing the Structure of the Deep Continental Crust, by Jack Oliver, Science 216 (14 May 1982) 689-695.

A Seismotectonic Model for the 300-Kilometer-Long Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone, by C. A. Powell, G. A. Bollinger, M. C. Chapman, M. S. Sibol, A. C. Johnston, and R. L. Wheeler, Science 264 (29 April 1994) 686-688.

The Historical Atlas of the Earth, ed. by Roger Osborne and Donald Tarling, Henry Holt 1996.

Georgia Geological Survey Information Circular 52, 1980.

Conversations with Stan Bearden.

Map at top of page, and 3D Relief Topo map of Pine Mountain, from DeLorme Topo USA on DVD-ROM (3D Vertical Exaggeration 2x).

Map second from top of page from mapblast.com.

USGS Maps, including: Cartersville Quadrangle (1:24,000); Greater Atl;anta Region (1:100,000); (1974); Rome, Atlanta, Athens, and Greenville (1:250,000).

 


 

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