Roswell Mill

Roswell Mill refers to a cluster of mills located in Fulton County near Vickery Creek in Roswell, GA. The mills were best known for producing finished textiles from raw materials grown on nearby plantations, and the group was "the largest cotton mill in north Georgia" at its height.

The mill grew steadily, at one point producing wool and flour, in addition to cotton textiles. This diversification progressed through several phases of ownership well into the 20th century, and the mill continued producing textiles until its eventual shutdown of operations in 1975.

The first mill was founded by Roswell King, a wealthy Connecticut businessman who had previously settled in Darien, Georgia, a small town on the state's Atlantic coast. He spent time as a construction manager, local militia officer (his father, Timothy King was a Revolutionary War veteran), and as a Representative in the Georgia State Legislature. He had also worked as the supervisor of Major Pierce Butler's two large plantations, in which office King was noted for his meticulous attention to detail in the day-to-day operations of the plantations. It was this strict recordkeeping that made King especially suited for factory management. Construction of the original mill started in 1836. Roswell King owned slaves, many of whom helped to build his home and the original mill; however, the number of slaves his family owned decreased once the mill was operating. Barrington King and Ralph King, two of Roswell’s sons, moved to the area to help run the fledgling business. Five families from the Atlantic city of Darien would later move to Roswell, which was incorporated into Fulton County in 1854, eighteen years after the mill’s first opening. An outbreak of the mumps and measles in 1847-8 left "over half the workers stricken and three slaves dead," likely due to the fact that the workers were living in close quarters and dark, cramped conditions.

Hydropower from Vickery Creek powered the mill, and nearby plantations supplied the raw cotton for processing. The first building was four stories high, eighty-eight feet long and forty-eight feet wide, though it was later expanded to 140 by fifty-three feet. The Roswell Mill was incorporated in 1839 by the Georgia General Assembly. The King family built two buildings, known as The Bricks, in which mill employees lived. A second mill was added in 1853, and in the Antebellum period the mill complex expanded to include six different structures.

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