USA > Georgia > Fulton County > Atlanta > History of Atlanta, Georgia : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 16
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Now, I have not, as I said, heard of any very distinguished mechanics. I have looked at your mines, but I do not see Bartow county people superintending them. I look at your rail- roads, and I do not see Bartow county people superintending them. You have immense water powers that are going to waste every day, but not a single one turns a wheel that makes you richer. All these mines are to be developed. You are looking for some Yankee to come down here with money, but he won't come. He is not coming. I will tell you one thing about Yankees, and it is the God's truth : They won't come and invest until you start with your money, generally speaking. They will come down here and live with you and make as good
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citizens as there are in the United States, but you have to show your faith in your enterprise by putting your money into them, too. You won't go to their country and put your money into a thing they won't touch. You will not go to New England and pick out an industry that they let stand there and put your money in it. As soon as you develop these things and show your faith in this country by your works, I say they will come, and you cannot keep them out.
How is all this to be accomplished ? "I have no money ; I can't put what little I have into it," says one man. " I do not want to put all my earnings into this thing, for I do not know whether I will get it hack or not." I will tell you what you can do. You have started on a very good line. You have started with an improvement company here. You just get ahout a half-dozen more. You need them organized on this plan : In the first place, you have to select the best men you have, select them as you will have to select your executors. When you die you know who is going to be executor of your estate, and therefore you have confidence in somebody in your county. You must exercise the same care in putting the best men at your improvement company, who will do their duty faithfully. Then let every man from Pine Log to the Etowah River come into it. If you cannot subscribe but one dollar a month, keep that up for twelve months, or two years, or five years. Start with that until you accumulate enough. Let those who make ten, twenty-five or fifty dollars a month take shares. You will not miss it in twelve months, and you will have fifty or a hundred thousand dollars before you can say Jack Robinson. It gives you a nucleus. Many enterprises have started out in that way, and if you will follow it and get everybody interested, it will be a piece of work that will benefit every man in Bartow county, the poor as well as the rich. The benefits will be as great in proportion to the man who owns no real estate as to the man who owns land.
When you do that and start your furnace, ascertain what it will take to put your iron into steel, and organize another company for converting that into steel. Then try a rolling-mill company, and let your people bear the burden. Then these little industries that I have re- ferred to will accumulate. I will venture to say that I could loan a million dollars here at eight per cent. You will get at least that much on your investments. Let the people understand when they enter this thing that it is to be a certainty. Do all you can to develop your country. If you cannot do all, do one. Start with the furnace. You would not think of taking a bag of seed cotton and putting it on your wagon and hauling it here to Cartersville to sell, unless you only had a fraction of a bale. But you will run it through the gin and bale it because you can get a better price for it, and if you could turn it into gingham or calico you would do that. You will have to do that to keep your money in this country. That is the reason the farmers do not make money. They let the people of the North and New England make it until the per capita of wealth in Massachusetts is ten times as much as it is in Georgia, and that is a coun - try where they have nine months of winter weather, and the balance of the weather is late fall. [Laughter. ] You have a country where you can live a year on what it takes to keep them warm during that cold spell. Yet they are getting rich by the use of this skilled labor that I have been speaking to you about, for they understand that they will get the money out of you. They sell you these things at the highest kind of prices, and at the same time you are buying your own cotton and your own manganese and your own iron.
Pursue the course that I have suggested and the advantages will be innumerable. Small manufactories will spring up all over these hills. Why, do you know how they make knives in England ? You think they do it all in large factories. Take these little Barlow knives. They throw a little piece of bone and a little piece of steel into a machine, and it comes out at the end in a Barlow knife. I will tell you how they make good knives. A farmer, living hve miles off, who is a skilled mechanic, has an emery wheel and a little forge, and he goes to the factory himself-Rogers's, or some other large factoryman-and he gets little pieces of steel that long (the speaker measuring the length on his finger], and he takes them home with him, so many clozen of them, and at the end of the week he comes back with so many large blades and so many small blades, and he gets his pay for that work, and he does it at odd times, maybe at
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night. Another man takes the handles, and he will take them out to his house, and he will bring them back at the end of the week and receive his pay. That is the way handles are made. The knife is then put together by men in the factories. It gives employment to num- bers of people-men, women and children.
Suppose you had a steel plant here, and some Englishman would come over and start a knife factory. You have a son and he learns to make these knife-blades, and you have him under you. He does not have to go to Atlanta, or Boston, or New England, away from your eye, but he is right there at home with you, and when you get in a tight place about your cot- ton crop you can just let him chop out cotton, and even while he is resting at dinner he can make a knife-blade or two. [Laughter.] That is the way they do it over there. It will bring about so many opportunities for the unemployed people in this country. You may send your boys to school and teach them everything in the world you can, but if you do not teach them to work you will cause them to suffer more for it than for the want of an education. My father sent me to school, but I thank God that he had the manhood, and knew the value of it, to teach me, above all things, how to work.
He did that for me. And when I came back home after the war and found my house burned to the ground, I set to work and built the house I lived in with my own hands, and I'll tell you that house is standing yet, but-I'm not living in it. [Laughter.] If he had not taught me how to work I expect I would be keeping a bar-room now. I do not know what I would have done. I needed a house, and I did not have the money to buy one, or to hire a man to build it, and I would have taken any job rather than have slept out, for I got enough of that during the war. I cut the logs with my own hands and built the house, and I say that is a part of the education my father gave me. That is what we have to do with our sons here. We have to teach them how to do things with their own hands as well as their heads. If they get so that they can live without working with their hands, then they can fall back on their heads. But if you teach them how to make a living with their heads, and they happen to slip up, they are not going to fall back on their hands. It is an important thing for you to understand, and more necessary here than anywhere else. You have to teach them to do some kind of work. Let them go out and see how the ore is mined, and when you get the furnace let them understand how the ore is turned into pig iron, and if you have the steel plant let them learn the process of making steel.
How do you know but what you have here to-day in Bartow county young men-boys to-day-who will revolutionize things as Bessemer did? He was nothing more than a poor boy, and he spent all the money he had and all he could borrow in perfecting his process. To-day he is worth millions. He did it by watching the process and making specimens, until he reduced the price of steel from $300 a ton down to $30 a ton by a simple little device that does not amount to a row of beans.
Now, about the future, and what we may expect. I heard my father say that in 1832 he heard the first railroad speech ever made in Georgia. He said he drove a wagon from Gwin- nett county down to Augusta, and while he was there they had a railroad meeting. He said there was a bull-headed fat man-he knew his name, but I have forgotten it-got up and made a railroad speech, the first he ever heard, and he said he thought the fellow was lying, and he thought so up to the time he died, I reckon. He said they had a stage line between Augusta and Charleston, and that they had accomplished a most wonderfol feat that day. You know that railroad from Augusta to Charleston when finished was the longest railroad in the world. He said this speaker said: " You are now hauling, by your stages, seventeen people a week from Augusta to Charleston. Why," said he, " fellow-citizens, when we get this railroad built from Augusta to Charleston, with our steam engine on it and our car behind it, we will haul a hundred men from Augusta to Charleston a week." I say everybody thought he was lying when he said it. That was before they had any railroads. Nobody could conceive of what it was going to do. If that man had told them the truth, that in fifty years they would be able
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to haul fifty thousand from Augusta to Charleston and back in less than a' week, they would have thrown him out of the window. [Laughter.] Suppose ten years ago a man had told you that in ten years you would be able to talk to a man from here to Atlanta. and that he could hear you and that you could hear him, you would not have believed it, would you ? I wouldn't, and I didn't for a good while ; thought there was a little ventriloquist in it. A man wanted me to go into that with him once, but I thought he was trying to get my money, and I wouldn't . put in it. I met that man afterwards and found that he had made three hundred thousand dollars for what he had offered me for five hundred. He even put up his machine and let me talk through it, but I did not believe it. I thought he was fooling me. That fellow came from New England.
Now you all recollect about the telegraph. Forty or fifty years ago none of us would have believed that to have been possible. And if you had talked about spanning the Atlantic Ocean with a cable, it would have been considered all moonshine. But they did it, and those engaged in it all got rich, every one of them. And to-day you can hear what is done in London before it occurs. . They have belted this world around with lightning.
I am no prophet. I do not pretend to be one, but I tell you one thing, and it does not re- quire any prophet to tell it to you ; that if you take off the dirt that covers up the mineral wealth of Bartow county and put it into your furnace with the proper mixtures. in ten or fifteen years from now, you will think if I predict that land, instead of being ten, or twenty, or thirty dollars an acre, will be worth five or six hundred dollars an acre, you will think I am not telling you the truth, but it is true. Why do I know it? Only the third generation is making iron in Pennsylvania to-day. Yet, if you go around where they have started these manufactories, the land to-day cannot be bought for five hundred dollars an acre, and there is not a particle of iron ore on it. The building of manufactories has enhanced the value of it. When you build your furnace and other industries, every farmer within twenty-five miles of Cartersville will be benefitted.
Mr. Sam Noble said when he went down to Anniston, and started to make a furnace there, the people were living in log houses, the farmers barely making a living, never sold a bushel of apples or a bushel of potatoes, and never had anything in the world but what they got from the sale of a little cotton they hauled to Rome ; chickens were selling at five cents apiece, and eggs at five to eight cents a dozen, and they would even give them to you it they couldn't sell them. After he put up furnaces there, and the men who work at the furnaces get from one to three' dollars a day, they buy the extra supplies those farmers have-their apples and onions and vegetables, and everything they raise, and things they gave to the hogs before, they now get good prices for : four or five times as much as they got for what they sold before the fur- nace was built. All these things came into market, and it gives the farmers good prices for their products, and they have got to living in white houses, and ride in top buggies, and they go to church regularly, and pay the preacher with some of the money, and pay the lawyers and doctors, and they feel good and rich and happy, and their lands that could be bought when he went there in 1872 for three or four or five dollars an acre, are now worth thirty or forty dollars an acre, and the day is coming very soon, when it will take one hundred dollars an acre to buy a farm within ten miles of .Anniston.
You cannot fill up your streets with unemployed people. You must give them employ- ment. If you do not they will live off of you. You can put them to digging iron ore. You can put them to smelting that ore. You can put them to work in the rolling-mills, and you can put them to making these little steel wires, and the first thing you know some fellow will come along and start that hairpin factory, and that button factory, and that fish-hook factory. and all those people will want to eat vegetables and fruit, and your other products, and you will keep on until you will become one of the richest and best sections not only in the South. but in the world.
I say this is practical common sense, and I can tell you how you can find out whether it is
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true or not. We have in the United States twenty-six hundred and fifty-two counties. Take the census of ISSo and look at the twenty counties where farm products and farming lands bring the highest prices, and you will find it is those counties where they have iron furnaces and hairpin factory and fish-hook factory, and all those kind of things that I have been talking about, that you can have here in Bartow county, as well as anywhere else. I say in the coun- ties where all farm products are the highest, are those that have iron furnaces, where em- ployees have to have something to eat, and drink and to wear, and they buy it from the farm- ers of the surrounding country. You have a home market for every bit of your surplus prod- ucts, and it does not have to lie and rot and go to manure, or fed to your hogs and sheep and cows, unless you want to do it to make good stock. Now, you take the twenty counties out of this twenty-six hundred and fifty-two counties where farming lands and farm products bring the smallest prices, and you will find they are those counties most remote from the manufac- turing centers. Now, I refer you to the census of 18So. Study it. It is full of valuable in- formation for you. It will do the people of Bartow county good to go over these questions. and think about them, because you are directly interested in what I say.
I tell you now there is no spot on the globe, or I know of none, from Maine to California, and from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, that have the resources that I allude to, in as great pro- fusion as you have here within twenty miles around your town. You have a fine climate to live in the year round, and you have a soil as valuable as the valleys of the Mississippi. You have everything to make you comfortable except money, and plenty of it, and the means I have sug- gested, is the way to get that.
Now, fellow-citizens, I have talked to you longer than I had intended to, for, to tell you the truth, I did not know that I was to make a speech. I thought I was coming up here to confer with you and help you to raise money to build a furnace. I want you to do it. I want Bartow county to take hold of this thing, for there is nothing in the world that will pay you so well as the fortunes that you may make for yourselves in this matter.
Right here I want to call to mind a little fable that I learned when I was at school, and probably many of you remember it. You remember the man that had a wheat field, and the wheat was just getting ripe, when he carried his son to look at it, and he said : " My son, this field of wheat is nearly ripe, and I want you to go out to-day and get all the neighbors to come and help me cut it." There were some young birds in their nest in the wheat, and they heard what the father said to his son, and when he went off the old mother bird came back, and the little ones, being frightened, said : "Mother, we are going to be disturbed, and be caught." The mother inquired the cause, and they said : " We heard the owner tell his son to summon all his neighbors to help them cut the wheat." The old bird said, " My children do not be frightened ; the neighbors are not coming here to help him cut his wheat." The next week the farmer with his son came back to look at his wheat, and he said. " My son this wheat is getting pretty ripe, and as we cannot get our neighbors in to help us, you go out on all the by-ways and highways and hire some men to come and help us to cut this wheat." They left, and in a short while the old mother bird returned, and the little ones were worse frightened than before, and said, " Mother, we are gone now." The mother asked why, and they told her what had occurred, and the mother bird said, " Do not be alarmed, they cannot hire any men in this neighborhood to help them, for their wheat needs cutting, too ; you will have wings and be strong enough to fly. before he gets men to cut his wheat." In three or four days father and son came back and looked at the wheat, and it was nearly ready to fall, getting too ripe, and the father said : " My boy, we cannot get our neighbors to cut this wheat, and we cannot hire anybody to cut it ; now, we must come here next Monday morning, and cut it our- selves." The mother hird canie back, and hearing what the farmer had said, told the little ones " Now, it is time to move ; they have resolved to do the work themselves, and they mean business." And they got out of that wheat field.
You have all this wealth in your midst, You have it here, and it needs your attention now
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above all other things, because the interests of the world demands it of you. If you leave it alone, and you suffer by it, you have nobody to blame but yourselves. Talk to your neighbor who is able to subscribe, and it he happens to be one of these really close men who is afraid to trust anybody, make him one of the trustees. You raise the money. I say, to build that fur- nace. ,You raise it for the purpose of doing what I told you, and the balance will come to you. Show your faith by your works first, and, when you have done that, you will live to bless the day when you made up your minds to cut your wheat yourselves. [ Applause. ]
K TEELY, CAPTAIN JOHN. For nearly a quarter of a century there was no name better known in Atlanta, if indeed in the whole State of Georgia, than that of the late Captain John Keely, and no commercial history of the city of his home and honorable achievements would be complete which failed to give prominent mention of his successful career. He was born in the beau- tiful little village of Newtownbarry, county of Wexford, Ireland, in 1839. and is a son of Thomas and Cecelia Keely. After having received a good English education in his native town, at the age of twelve years he began his business career in Dublin as a clerk in a dry goods store. He was employed for seven years in this capacity and displayed such capability that, at the end of this time, he was employed to fill a situation at the head of a department in the largest dry goods house in Quebec, Canada. Reaching that city he re- mained there one year, when, having completed his engagement, he went to New York. He was kept busy in New York about twenty months, having charge of the silk department in one of the leading dry goods houses in the metropolis.
Having a strong desire to visit the South, in 1858 he came to Atlanta and entered the employ of the dry goods house of Halpin & Myers. While in their employ he became a member of the Jackson Guards, a militia company then existing in the city. After a year's connection with the company the struggle between the States began, and those who had been "playing soldiers" in times of peace were confronted with all the realities of war. The Jackson Guards were called upon by the State of Georgia to act in her defense, and promptly answered the call. The company was enrolled in June, 1861, as Company " B," Nineteenth Georgia Infantry, and among the members was young Keely as second lieutenant. He had before served as an officer of the company, and when the State of his adoption called for defenders he bravely responded, fired with all the love of daring that has made his race honorable in the military annals of the world.
The Nineteenth Regiment became a part of Lee's army and served most of the time in Virginia, but on two occasions was withdrawn from that State. On one instance it was called to the defense of Charleston, S. C, where it re- mained for eight months, during which time it contributed a portion of the garrison at Forts Sumter and Wagner. When it was withdrawn from Charles- ton it was hurried on to Florida and became a part of the army which fought
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at Olustee, or Ocean Pond, prior to which Lieutenant Keely was promoted to the rank of captain. After the conclusion of the Florida campaign the Nine- teenth was ordered back to Charleston. While stationed here Captain Keely with fifty men was sent to the defense of Fort Sumter, where he rendered val- uable service for thirty days. In the meantime the regiment, with the balance of the brigade, rejoined Lee's army. Captain Keely with his command re- turned to his regiment while stationed at Drury's Bluffs and participated in the campaign that followed, including the hard fought battles of Cold Harbor, siege of Petersburg, and other engagements which marked the close of the war. The Nineteenth, in December, 1864. became a part of General Hooker's divi- sion, which was ordered to Wilmington, N. C., arriving there on the day Fort Fisher was captured by the Federal forces. The command afterwards partici- pated in the battles of Kingston aud Bentonville. In the latter battle Captain Keely's leg was broken by a bullet while charging the Federal breastwork on Sunday morning, March 19, 1865. He lay wounded for five months in Raleigh, N. C., during which time Lee and Johnson had surrendered. From the effects of that wound he never fully recovered, and it finally proved the direct cause of his death.
For nearly four years Captain Keely was in almost constant and continuous service in the field, and with a command which, in many of the most hotly contested battles of the civil war, gained a record for soldierly qualities, bravery and daring unsurpassed. He proved himself a model soldier and well sus- tained the martial reputation of his countrymen. Another has said of him : " He served with great gallantry and was one of the most popular men in the army. Brave to a fault, generous, brilliant and witty, he was the soul of the camp fire." Indeed, he was every inch the soldier, both in personal appear- ance and in bravery. He possessed the qualities of which great generals are made, and had the war lasted longer he would have certainly reached high rank.
After he had partially recovered from the effects of his wound he returned to Atlanta and entered the employ of John M. Gannon as a clerk, in the dry goods store which occupied the site of the building where his entire mer- cantile career was afterward spent. He remained in Mr. Gannon's employ for four years, when, with the money he had saved, he purchased the business. His career from that time until his death is well known to every resident of Atlanta. Under his management business rapidly increased, and to meet the demands of his trade additional store room was added from time to time, and for several years prior to his retirement from mercantile business, in the sum- mer of 1888, the stores, Nos. 58, 60, 62 and 64 Whitehall and 8 and 10 Hun- ter streets, were used in conducting his extensive retail trade, probably the largest in the Southern States, sixty-five to eighty persons being employed in the various departments. The development of such an enormous business in
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