Rise of Atlanta: Nineteenth Century Industrial Contributions
From an industrious background, Norcross was eventually taught the trade of millwright. Where thereafter, he went to Cuba, constructing a mill for processing sugar. While attending lectures in mechanics at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA, Norcross principally studied arts and sciences, beyond his common education in Maine, receiving praise for an essay entitled Mercantile Integrity. Norcross then left Pennsylvania to teach school in North Carolina (1833) which led to his southern travels; entering Georgia (1835); residing first in Augustus, then onto where would eventually become Atlanta for the remainder of his life. In 1836, he took charge of lumber interests in Southern Georgia for Northern capitalists. While in Putnam County, Georgia he filed a patent, US 3210 for a Reciprocating Mill-Saw Guide in August 1843
From these efforts, he invented a vertical saw with a circular wheel 40 feet in diameter, which was adjusted in an almost horizontal position, with a capacity to saw approximately 1,000' of lumber per day.
In August (1844), Norcross came to Marthasville, GA, "but the humble terminus of a railroad," establishing himself as a successful dry goods merchant and sawmill operator; becoming a prominent citizen. His sawmill mainly produced railroad ties and string timbers for the construction of the Georgia Railroad. The leavings of the mill provided timbers for shanties built by the poor where Grady Hospital now sits called Slabtown. While pioneer life could be characterized as desolate and simple, it was evident of plain pleasures, however dangerous, as described by Jonathan Norcross:
"I recalled very well the first train of cars over the Georgia Railroad. It was on the 15th of September, 1845. The train came in about dark. Judge King was on board and a great many others. There were a great many people out, and there was a good deal of excitement. There was a well in the square here, and such was the excitement, and it being dark, a man fell into the well and was drowned. Judge King came very near falling in there, also. It was dark, and he was just on the brink of stepping in when someone caught him and saved him. I suppose there were about twenty families here at the time."
Marthasville was renamed Atlanta in 1845 (chartered, December 1847). Norcross evoked the pioneer spirit and ambition, "seen in the individual independence of its citizens," but even as Norcross commented, many municipal decisions were made in haste, "he reason why the streets are so crooked," as he explained, "is that every man built on his land just to suit himself." This spirit of individuals' such as Norcross is emblematic of the foresight and potential many of its leaders demonstrated in the need for law(s) and order to perpetuate the growth of Atlanta; whose reasoned nature is seen in full form in his positioning for political office.
Jonathan Norcross additionally co-founded the Daily Intelligencer two years later (1849), recognizing a significance in establishment credentials.
Norcross owned the landmark Norcross Building at Five Points in Downtown Atlanta, built in 1894 and destroyed by fire in 1902.
Norcross was also instrumental with 23 others' in organizing the Atlanta National Bank (commenced, 1851; charter for incorp., 27 Jan. 1852). The impetus for such an effort derived from a recognition, "to the continued prosperity of the city." The first charter Bank of Atlanta however was unsuccessful; a "distrust in its methods of doing business and in those who had control of its management; (a committee of five elected directors' composed of stockholders), appears to have become general," though it is duly noted that these suspicions were simply perceptions not fully founded. However, in both 1845, and October 1855 given several bank runs, its fate seems to have sealed, for Director, Mr. Smith, "wound up affairs of bank toward the later part of 1855;" and it was out of business . However, on 6 March 1856, Norcross and others', with determination, incorporated the Bank of Fulton; the second bank of Atlanta with greater success.
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