This was the most positive experience. History channel producers are so professional. I never thought I would ever be on the History channel, much less on this excellent show.
I am surprised at the interest that my second book, Underwater Ghost Towns of North Georgia. I get calls on a regular basis from producers wanting to pitch stories about Lake Lanier. Mind you that this is only one chapter in the 5 books I have written about Georgia History. It is a hot topic. One thing I tell the producers who call me, I will not make things up. I will not turn the story into a ghost story. Thank goodness, the producers on Shatner’s show are not interested in made up ghost stories. We talked about “curses.”
The stories of Lake Lanier are interesting enough with out making up sensational stories. History is sensational in all its truths. That said, I have also been accused by ignorant people of white washing history. They are ignorant, because the comments come from people who do not read what I wrote. They do not put things into context. In my next book, Lost Mills of Fulton County, I included stories about the evil treatment of African Americans at the turn of the twentieth century. I do not sensationalize the stories, just offer them as a terrible part of Georgia history.
Lost Mill Towns of North Georgiais my favorite. My third book in my lost North Georgia series got lost in Covid-19. I wanted to focus on some things in that book and include more images and stories. The first focus is Chicopee. The Johnson & Johnson Corporation established this progressive mill town in 1927. Though a latecomer to the mill village, it set a new standard in construction, cleanliness, and character.
Chicopee was so different from most of the mill villages built in North Georgia in the Mill Village era. Most mills town homes built during the “New South” ushered in my Henry Grady in the 1880s and 1890s were rudimentary wood constructions that were built quickly with the bare necessities, A few forward-thinking mill owners built with brick. They built their mill towns with care and deliberate design, like Chicopee Village in Hall County near Gainesville, Georgia. The evidence is in their survival today.
In the split image below, you can see two houses, though not the same, you can see how the construction lasted almost 95 years. The home on the left is just after its construction, about 1927. Its new owner, Malachi Mills, a local musician and American Idol contestant, photographed his home on the right. Malachi grew up near the mills (no pun intended) and lives in one of the Johnson & Johnson mill homes in Chicopee. I am sure he spends hours rehearsing in his beautifully redecorated mill home. The interior structure is strikingly similar to the original.
Image on the right by Malachi Mills
Original House Plans for Chicopee
Chicopee was Clean
Besides building a company village, Johnson & Johnson built a community based on good health and cleanliness. They employed a community designer to place the homes on winding roads with various floor plans. Sanitary lifestyles ruled Chicopee. A guidebook listed the rules for living in village homes.
The Village Handbook
Household Regulations
Keep washbasins, bathtubs, and water closets clean. (Special brushes are provided for this purpose.)
Keep your cookstoves and iceboxes clean.
Keep walls and ceilings clean in every room.
Keep porches clean.
Keep screens in windows through the summer.
Report at once any trouble with the lights or plumbing.
Keep grass on lawns cut, and the ground around the house clean and free from rubbish.
Do not allow garbage or ashes to collect upon the premises. Put them in the cans provided for this purpose. These cans will be collected and their contents disposed of daily without charge.
Do not waste water and electric current. Turn off all electric lights, water faucets and electric stoves or heaters as soon as you are through with them.
Follow all directions of visiting nurse when she makes her regular inspections of the premises.
Village Regulations
Keep sidewalks swept.
Help to keep all streets, parks, and playgrounds clean. Do not scatter papers.
Never park an automobile in front of a fire hydrant.
Do not tamper with fire hydrants or the village telephones.
Do not damage trees, shrubs, roadways, or any other public property
Cows, mules, horses, and goats must not be kept upon the property and household pets must not include a vicious dog or any other animal which can menace or annoy your neighbors
Know where your children are and what they are doing when not in school or in charge of a director at the playgrounds.
Use village telephones to instantly report an outbreak of fire.
Report immediately to the trained nurse in every case of sickness.
Report all public nuisances, disturbances, and violations of the law to the Department of Public Safety.
Use village telephones to report accidents.
They furnished the town with modern homes, medical care, churches, stores, and other necessities to create a self-contained community. This was necessary for these former farmers who had left the farm with little money and no transportation. They pushed the company propaganda that they lived in “the model textile village of the world reminded residents,” where “every available expenditure and preparation [had] been made for [their] comfort and happiness.” (“The Workers of Chicopee: Progressive Paternalism and the Culture of Accommodation in a Modern Mill Village”).
Chicopee had Character
The company looked different from the traditional cotton mill of its day. Some say it looked like a college campus. The village that would accompany the progress mill would also have a different character. Johnson & Johnson extended the paternalism culture when Robert Wood Johnson walked the fields that would be Chicopee and imagined the village. Historian James J. Lorence wrote in the Georgia Historical Quarterly, “The Chicopee experiment was the personal project of Robert Wood Johnson, who envisioned a highly productive enterprise rooted in management acceptance of responsibility for the well-being of the workforce as well as a firm commitment to the premise that good labor relations constituted good business” (“The Workers of Chicopee: Progressive Paternalism and the Culture of Accommodation in a Modern Mill Village”).
The village newspaper, The Chicopee News, published from 1928 through 1934, reinforced company policies and community solidarity. According to Lorence, “A prominent feature of the paper was the regular front-page editorial filled with homilies containing moral lessons ‘for all of us.’ It addressed such issues as community spirit, ambition, personal sin, honesty, and self-assurance, counseling “faith in yourself.” In the wake of the early depression, for example, the paper advised villagers to avoid transience, urging them to “make whatever changes are needed within yourself” and “find success in your own hometown.”
Like most mill towns, paternalism waned. After WWII, men and women came home with more opportunities and began moving out of the mill villages. Owners relinquished ownership of the homes to the current residents or landlords who no longer followed the J&J rule book. This is where the mill villages got lost. The poorly built mill homes of other mills suffered from neglect and were often torn down – they disappeared or they became low rent homes. Few survived, but Chicopee did.
Chicopee Continues
Most North Georgia mill villages have melted into the past or are kudzu-owned. Chicopee survived because of the brick design and construction care, cleanliness standards, and character standards infused by Johnson & Johnson. On a recent drive through the old mill town, the carefully planned curved roads wound around homes that were cared for and streets cleaned. The old place showed its age, but someone was still trimming the community areas. There are groups trying to keep the place alive. I noticed websites that were raising money for the community. Businesses like Left Nut Brewing Co. thrive in the old mill area across the street. There is still life in Chicopee. There is something special about Chicopee.
Company picnicBuilding Chicopee Chicopee VillageChicopee Mills was like a college campusRolls of Gauze from Johnson & JohnsonRolling StreetsBaseball was a big deal in mill villages across North Georgia.Images from Chicopee from Hargrett Library at UGA
Rising from the red clay-stained waters of Lake Allatoona, Glen Holly teases a few times a year. When the water retreats, a home place appears. War, fire, nature and water have finished their work to dismantle the mansion. Gone are the vineyards, orchards, and gardens, but the Cooper family has kept the legacy alive. Out of miry shadows, lost history materializes.
Mark Anthony Pope III wrote the comprehensive book, Mark Anthony Cooper: Iron Man of Georgia. Pope’s book paints the landscape of the Cooper story. His cousin Barry Wright, III focused on the details and his great-grandfather in John Paul Cooper: Georgia Giant in the Revival of Cotton during the Early 1900s. Wright’s work and his generous gift of sharing his family papers add living color to the sepia past.
Wright remembers his childhood visits to Glen Holly. His grandfather, Frederick, told tales of the family patriarch, “The Old Major,” and his eccentric Uncle Eugene and Aunt Rosa. He then introduced his grandson to Glen Holly.[1]
Mark Anthony Cooper built Glen Holly on a hill upriver from The Etowah Manufacturing and Mining Company. Eugene Cooper, Mark Anthony’s only surviving son described Glen Holly in an 1885 Atlanta Journal article: “Glen Holly was beautiful place, nestled on the ragged crags overlooking the sparkling, laughing waters of the Etowah.”[2]
Decades later, the US Army Corp of Engineers built a dam to impound those laughing waters, covering the remains of Etowah and Glen Holly. Sherman did his best to erase the manufacturing town. Two fires obliterated the family home. Fire, war, and water may have suppressed this Bartow treasure, but the Coopers continue to conjure the ghosts of Glen Holly.
Wright walked Glen Holly with his grandfather and took a canoe to the “island” as a teen. But it was not until he grew up and received a box of family papers and photographs that he understood, “I got a sense of the house, orchards, gardens, outbuildings as actual history. For the first time, my family history was real.” Wright continued, “The descriptions and conversations I’d read in the letters and accounts now made absolute sense.” Trips to Glen Holly woke his mind: “I could see The Old Major cultivating his apple orchard, including two varieties named for Cooper. I imagined Uncle Eugene planting the dozens of peach trees his nephew, John Paul Cooper, had bought him.” Wright stirred up the past and shadowy stories of Etowah and Glen Holly have found new life.[3]
I got a sense of the house, orchards, gardens, outbuildings as actual history. For the first time, my family history was real.
Barry Wright, III
In 2012, Wright paddled toward Glen Holly with his daughter in a small canoe and kayak. In the winter, the Lake Allatoona is low and he could see what remained of his family’s home place. He found chimney brick scattered on the red clay knoll and much of the stone wall that surrounded the property remained albeit submerged in most places.
Wright picked up pieces of the past—glass, china, and something dated and special. Wright reported,” One fragment, the spout of a glass pitcher, had the date 1838 still intact and showing.” The Cooper family kept their past intact by recording their history. Besides the mounds of correspondence, documents, and images—they had their stories. Wright’s visits to Glen Holly and hours of research prove the family stories are true. In the process of rediscovery, they summoned the ghosts of Glen Holly.[4]
When Mark Anthony Cooper left his political career to build an iron business and establish the town of Etowah, he picked a prime piece of real estate in town to build the Cooper home place, Glen Holly. He built up the river away from the noise of the Iron Works. The Etowah River was in view and watered his orchards, vineyard, and gardens. Outbuildings that served as smaller homes for family members surrounded it. A stone wall that survives under the waters of Lake Allatoona surrounded the centerpiece, the home,.
Remnants of the rock wall surrounding the Glen Holly home place during low water
[1] Barry Wright, III, Email Interview, January 2019.
[2] Eugene Cooper, “The Cartersville American has this about the burning of Major Cooper’s residence,” The Atlanta Constitution, July 10, 1884, http://www.newspapers.com/clip/369487/the_atlanta_constitution.
[3] Barry Wright, III, Email Interview, January 2019.
Since there are few pictures of Etowah, we rely on records of past residents. J.W. Joseph described the town as having a boardinghouse and twelve dwelling houses. There were two hundred acres of farmland and four acres of vineyards. There were private log homes.
The private residence for the owners, Stroup and Cooper, were located up the river at a distance from the mills, to get away from the noise of machinery.[1]
Cooper’s furnace worked forty-five weeks a year and produced up to thirty tons of pig iron each week. The price of iron at the time was brought up to twenty-five dollars per ton. In modern terms, Etowah Mining Company would have grossed about $21,000 per week. Once one of the busiest places in the entire South, Etowah grew into an industrial town with hundreds of workers and included slave labor.
Originally constructed in the late 1830s by Moses Stroup and his father, the iron furnaces were the early industrial parks of Bartow (then Cass) County. In1847 Georgia congressional representative Mark Anthony Cooper and a financial partner, Andrew M. Wiley, purchased the furnace and many related businesses from Moses and worked together to build Etowah.
The manufacturing town grew to two thousand people at its peak and contained a rolling mill, flour mill, carpenter shop, foundry, spike and nail mills, a hotel and workers’ homes. Etowah had a spur track connecting to Western Atlantic Railroad (W&A) that Cooper financed himself.[2]
The railroad had an engine called Yonah. It not only shipped freight to Etowah Crossing—Yonah played a role in the Great Locomotive Chase during the Civil War.
The products made and shipped from Etowah were pots or hollow ware, tools, cannons, spikes, nails, pig iron and other molded or rolled iron. The rails for Cooper’s beloved railroad were first manufactured in Etowah. Cooper was selling products worldwide. Georgia did not have a market for iron, but he diversified and sold other products.
Etowah always struggled financially. Cooper said the flour mill was profitable. The Cooper mills produced flour in a five story flouring mill. By 1849 was producing fine flour. Cooper’s flour was touted as the finest flour—“fit for a queen.” In fact, Major Cooper sent several barrels to Queen Victoria. Later, he received a letter from the Queen’s secretary saying, “The flour had arrived in good condition and Her Majesty had enjoyed the bread made of it and thanked Major Cooper for his kindness.”[3] The Old Major priced his flour for profit as he undercut local markets selling at cost.[4]
According to the 1988 article in North Georgia Journal, Etowah had it all. David wrote, “The thriving little town had a combination school and church; a boarding house; a bordello; a bank; a post office; a brewery; a company store; and log houses for the workers and their families.” [5] In 1852, Etowah had a population of 1,832. This may not seem very large, but the county seat, Cassville, was the largest settlement, with a population in this same year of 1,794. Mrs. Roe Knight interviewed Francis Adair interviewed in 1930 and left this verbal picture of Etowah:
They then lay the land off into streets, lots, and localities. A few of the more important structures which immediately went up were: The Church, school house, President’s office, bank, boarding house, and several large stores. The chief boasts of the town, however, were the railroad turntable and the post office.
Francis Adair
Mrs. Knight mentioned a barrel factory with a usual daily output of 250 to 300 barrels. She spoke of a brewery and mentioned an iron warehouse connected to the railroad line, constructed to store all the pig iron produced when it was not profitable to sell it.[6]
Taking Care of His Own
Cooper was a benevolent man; he cared for the workers and the families in Etowah. The lost town had log cabins for the workers, a company store, and a school/church. His iron did not sell well in Georgia, but he had a product that sold well in New York markets. He started making hollow ware for cooking and built a five story flour mill. He had to diversify to keep his workers paid. He was concerned for them, but not in a judgmental way. Proof remains he tried to help them leave at least one vice behind.
The Coopers found an old wine label in the papers. Besides iron, flour, cornmeal, and produce, the Old Major made wine. Mark Anthony Cooper imported German grapes and a German winemaker. Mark Cooper remembers his grandfather’s wine press in a 1958 family document. He says the wine press stood across “a little hollow from the springhouse.” He details someone made the old wine press of wood and had two stories. Cooper remembers, “There was also an enormous screw, or helix, used in the press to squeeze the wine out of the grapes. As I recall it, this was made in the Works, and it was approximately four or five inches in diameter, and quite long. I don’t recall the length-some seven or eight feet, I would say”.[7] Mark A. Cooper explains:
The wine press was on the side of the side of the hill, the grapes were brought in on the uphill side into the second story which was made of wood, where the actual press was. Down below were barrels, enormous ones. My grandmother has said some of them were six feet across. I seem to remember seeing the hoops of some which would be a little smaller than possible 4 or 5 feet, though that’s been a long time ago. [8]
Mark A. Cooper
Cooper continues to describe the spring house that housed the wine press:
The spring house comprised an open court, with a curing stone staircase going down into the spring, which was encased in as tone curb, or whatever you call it, and which flowed through a hole in that burb, across a channel cut in flagstones, into the spring house proper
In this, there were two long stone troughs with spring water in them, possibly eight inches deep. These troughs were probably two or three feet across, the sides being made of one piece of stone, and they were probably six or eight feet long. This took the place of a refrigerator.[9]
He wanted to keep his men away from using corn liquor or white lightning. Mark A. Cooper says, “This never was very successful.”[10] Catawba wine was just not the same as the hard core moonshine for the hard-working men of the Etowah Iron Works.
In some ways Cooper was a mystery, The New Georgia Encyclopedia tried to explain the man, “A believer in temperance, he opposed the prohibition laws that dominated political discussion in the last years of his life.” [11] Maybe he felt wine was better than white lightning. Perhaps Cooper was not a legalist and knew respect won people and love—not laws.
Mark Anthony Cooper had an unwavering faith. A faith he passed down to his children and grandchildren. He did not touch alcohol or tobacco and was faithfully married to his wife Sophronia for 56 years. So, when he built his company town (Etowah) why did he make wine and have a bordello in Etowah? His great grandson explained, Mark Anthony Cooper was about peace and letting others live their lives.[12]
He wanted to create community among his workers, so he was not judgmental. Cooper, however, provided opportunities for others to find faith. He built a church and introduced revivals and special meetings to his community. Mark Anthony Cooper was a leader in local Baptist associations and even help start the Southern Baptist Convention at the time of the War Between the States. Cooper’s deep faith caused him to love his family and his employees and not judge them.
Cooper fostered loyalty among his workers, but also among other entrepreneurs. On the brink of bankruptcy in early 1850s, thirty-eight friends helped him and by the end of a decade he had repaid his debt. In 1859-1860 he created a one of a kind memorial to those thirty-eight friends who helped him save the Cooper Iron Works. This Friendship Monument moved around, but is currently in downtown Cartersville next to the former depot.
Cooper was an industrial giant in North Georgia in the early 1800s, bringing the railroad to the region and advocating industrial growth. Although he left “King Cotton” behind to mine the minerals in Bartow County, he was the founder and presiding officer of the organization that became the Georgia State Agricultural Society in 1846. Cooper invested heavily in Confederate bonds and did not want to appear to doubt the legitimacy of the Confederacy. That decision would cost him and leave him destitute when his iron works were destroyed as a byproduct of the Civil War. [13]
War
Civil War played an important role in the life of Etowah and Glen Holly. When war came to North Georgia, the Cooper family lost more than the manufacturing village of Etowah. They lost all their wealth and two sons; Frederick and Thomas died from wounds suffered in battle.
Cooper bet on the Confederates. He sold the Iron Works and then invested in the Cause. He took the proceeds of the sale and sunk it into Confederate bonds. At the end of the war, he was destitute.
Union soldiers did not invade Glen Holly or destroy the Cooper mansion. They preserved the family cemetery. His two Confederate officer sons were buried there under the enormous magnolia trees. Mark Anthony and Sophronia continued to live in their home until Sophronia died from pneumonia in 1881. Uncle Eugene and Aunt Rosa remained unmarried and served as their parent’s caretakers.[14]
The Union soldiers could not find the Iron Works as it was not a usual location for a large manufacturing town nestled in the hills – hidden from view. The local lore says that a resident of German descent showed Sherman’s soldiers where Etowah was located. Years later, during World War I, the Bartow County citizens turned those Germans into the authorities.
According to Cooper’s great-grandson, “Mark A. Cooper was crossing the river when the troops destroyed the rolling mill, the flour mills, and the other facilities and buildings.” The Federal Army not destroyed his Iron Foundry, but they flung the friendship monument into a well. Glen Holly, Cooper’s home on a little knoll near the Etowah River and away from the Works, remained unscathed.[15]
Fire
Glen Holly had a fire in the 1850s, but the blaze that finally brought Glen Holly down was on July 4, 1884. A chimney fire devoured the Major’s “curious and valuable relics” from his vast life. His son, Eugene, had a flair for the dramatic as evidenced by the story he wrote for the Atlanta Journal. He wrote, “The fire caught from the burning soot in one of the chimneys, and made such rapid program before it was discovered that nothing of any value was saved.” He explains that Major Mark Anthony Cooper lost many books and important documents, but the fire erased even more. The article continues, “It has been for 30 years the home of the most generous hospitality, and there are thousands of Georgians who will remember pleasant hours spent there.”[16]
After the fire, without his wife, the widower was without a home. Cooper moved into a building on the property that belonged to one of his workers. Less than a year later, Mark Anthony Cooper died in Glen Holly in Hezekiah’s house with his unmarried children Eugene and Rosa (and other family members) at his side.[17]
Wild
After the fire and Mark Anthony’s death, Glen Holly was abandoned and fell into disrepair. John Paul Cooper wanted to preserve something of the past.
The Etowah Iron Works property left the Cooper’s hands during the Civil War, but they were still interested in preserving the old furnace stack. John Paul Cooper writes to a Mr. George H. Aubrey in 1916, “I have not given up the hope of buying the old furnace stack near my property on the Etowah River.” Georgia Power, even at that early date, wanted to dam the Etowah River and flooding Etowah Village and Glen Holly.[18]
Aubrey, an attorney, responds to Cooper that he felt there was little chance that he could purchase the stake. He says, “The Munfords and some of their friends have created a little summer colony in the gap, close to the old furnace stack, building cottages, etc, and I doubt their willingness to part with anything at that point.”[19]
Cooper continues his correspondence with another letter stating: “I hope the Mumfords won’t be obdurate. I will accommodate my plans to those of the summer colony. I feel sure there would be no cottages built within the space I would wish to enclose.” He wanted to enclose the furnace for historical preservation and make improvements like growing grass. He offered the Mumford the use of his spring on his land and will clean it up for them to use.
The next letter from Aubrey conveys Mr. Mumford’s response to Cooper’s request to preserve or buy the old furnace. Mumford said, “No.” Aubrey let Cooper know that he was in poor health and things could change.[20]
Family correspondence shows a variety of caretakers, log poachers, vandalism and the things they tried to do to protect their home place.
In a series of letters between Walter, Frederick, and Mark describe what was happening to the property. In August 1929, Walter G. Cooper, an Atlanta historian, writes to Frederic and asks, “Can you tell me whether the road to Glen Holly from the railroad bridge, or from Cartersville is passable? Is there a tenant on the place?”[21] Walter had not been to the property since his mother’s funeral in 1915. One month later Walter writes again, “I went to Glen Holly yesterday.” He continues, “We had not serious trouble until we got to the little spring where you turn off the main road about a quarter of a mile from Glen Holly. There it was so marshy that we had to park the car and walk the rest of the distance to the home place.”
Walter describes his run in with a poacher who had set up a portable sawmill on the property: “There was no one in sight when we passed but as we were eating our lunch at the home place a large man with a long beard, apparently 65 years old, rather rough looking, came by and went around the house. I asked him if he would have lunch with us, but he said no and went on.”[22]
The home place upset Walter as he told Frederick,
I was made very sad and somewhat shocked to find the home place overgrown with young trees, 10 or 12 feet high and covered so densely that we could not even see the foundations of the old house until we had threaded our way through the trees from the front stone steps. The whole place was more or less covered with undergrowth, so that even the road that approached the house was obscured.
walter Cooper
Walter continues to describe the condition of the cemetery. He said it was difficult to get there, but once there the large magnolia had blocked the excessive growth of weeds. He shares his discovery of bootleggers had been on the property; he explained that revenue agents had cleared them out. He thought this location would make a great resort once Georgia Power built the dam across Mount Moses and Mount Leroy.
Frederick finally responds to his Uncle in October. He was grateful for the tip about the sawmill and lawyer cousin Aubrey “was on it”. He explained that getting a caretaker at Glen Holly was difficult, “The is no attraction there for a responsible man, because the land in its present condition does not warrant farm; and it would be quite expensive to put a responsible man there on full-time pay.”
Ten years later, Uncle Walter wrote to his nephew Frederick once again about the dam. Walter writes, “In the Engineers Report they suggested build a dam 80 feet high in the Etowah River between Mount Moses and Mount Leroy, about ¾ mile from Glen Holly.” [24] He suggests a cement wall be built around the cemetery. Walter reminds Frederick that the condition of Glen Holly has deteriorated, entering the homesite and gravesites impossible. Frederick replies to his uncle, “We have intentionally let he road into the place become practically impassable because we were subject to a very undesirable sort of trespass there, as long as access was easy.” [25] One decade later, it would no longer be an issue.
Water
The next phase in Glen Holly’s life was the dam construction. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started work on the Allatoona Dam project in 1941, but World War II halted all work. Once the project resumed in 1946, they identified several sites to be at risk of being covered by the rising waters. The old village site of Etowah was ground zero for submersion. Glen Holly’s and the Village of Etowah were mostly on the northeast side of Allatoona Dam and not entirely around the Cooper furnace which stands today. Several other sites also fell victim to rising waters. Among those were the Allatoona Pass rail community, Abernathyville or Old Macedonia, two iron furnace sites, mining sites, several cemeteries including the Cooper family cemetery and Glen Holly, home of Major Mark Cooper.
By 1949, the dam was complete, and the waters poured into Etowah. While pieces of the town survived the Civil War and fire did its work, water finished the job. Water covered the remnants, including Glen Holly and the family cemetery.
The Cooper family had to go to court and fight for proper re-internment of the graves. They required certain things be done including placing a copper plate at the new graves in Oak Hill Cemetery. The U.S. Corp moved Sophronia and Mark A Cooper along with family members. It encased three children who died young in high-quality iron caskets made in the at the Etowah Iron Works. These caskets were once attributed to the patriarch and matriarch, but the iron caskets belonged to three of their children who died young. The large iron casket may contain two children.
The government took its time to place the copper Cooper memorial at Oak Hill. In true government fashion, they blamed the delay on a “copper shortage.” Simple words on the memorial explain what happened at Glen Holly:
In Memoriam
This family cemetery containing eleven graves was removed from Glen Holly in 1949 to permit construction of Allatoona Dam and Reservoir.
Erected by Corps of Engineers.
In true Cooper fashion, loyalty to friends was important. Jim Knight’s property was in the impoundment area. The Cooper tried to help Jim keep his property. They wrote several letters to government officials pleading Jim’s case. They clarified that they were not concerned with Cooper’s property, but were concerned for Jim Knight . After a failed letter-writing campaign, the Army Corps took Knight’s property for the reservoir.
Ghosts
These words appear on a board on a hiking trail at the Cooper’s Furnace Day Use Area:
“Since the ironworks at Etowah were too valuable to the Confederacy to be left intact. Federal troops set them ablaze along with much of the surrounding town. It was a fatal blow. Industrialist Mark Cooper lived on at his home ‘Glen Holly’ until 1885, but Etowah would soon be shrouded in the mists of time and forgotten by most.”
This plaque was near the old iron furnace stack John Paul Cooper wanted to buy and preserve for history. John Paul could not purchase the furnace, but they preserved it.
In family lore, the Coopers passed down many stories about the eccentric Uncle Eugene. When Glen Holly was in ruins, and Eugene still lived in one building on the property, he would go out every evening and blow a long “spirit horn.” A spirit horn was an old Southern tradition that was supposed to chase away the ghosts. The Coopers may have felt haunted with all the lost surrounding Glen Holly.
While this fit Uncle Eugene’s personality, most believed it was fiction. In the 1970s, in the barn attic of Woodhaven, John Paul Cooper’s home, a long spirit horn was found. Eugene followed in an ancient southern tradition of blowing the long trumpet to chase away the ghosts of Glen Holly.[26]
Ghosts of Glen Holly Present remain on the land as the water recedes once a year to reveal the old home place and its antebellum past. But it does not end there. While fires burned many family documents and valuable books, the past haunts and requires something more.
Ghosts of Glen Holly teach us to live a life worthy of remembrance. The Coopers moved about North Georgia and left their legacy in education and industry. John Paul and Alice Allgood Cooper helped establish Darlington Schools. Hattie Cooper created and nurtured Shorter College. Shorter College (now University) named a few buildings for the Coopers. A Cooper started the Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta. Several industries, were born and sustained by John Paul Cooper. The family is full of historians, both amateur and professional.
The story continues. The Cooper descendants are still adding to communities of Bartow and Floyd. The Ghosts of Glen Holly refuse to slip away quietly.
Bibliography
A Monument to His Friends Erected By Mark A. Cooper. Cooper Family Papers, n.d.
Bob, Andrew. “The Lost City of Etowah.” Backroads Georgia, Summer 2005, 29-32.
Cooper, Eugene. “The Cartersville American has this about the burning of Major Cooper’s residence.” The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta), July 10, 1884, 528. http://www.newspapers.com/clip/369487/the_atlanta_constitution.
Cooper, Frederick S. “Letter to Walter G. Cooper.” Atlanta. Last modified May 2, 1938.
Cooper, Frederic S. “Letter to Walter G. Cooper.” Atlanta. Last modified October 8, 1929.
Cooper, John Paul. Letter to Mr. George H. Aubrey. Cartersville, GA: John Paul Cooper Family Papers, 1916.
Cooper, Mark A. “Letter to Walter G. Cooper.” John Paul Cooper Family Papers. Last modified September 17, 1929.
Cooper, Mark A. “Mark Anthony Cooper’s Remembrance of The Old Major.” John Paul Cooper Family Papers. Last modified 1958.
Cooper, Walter G. “The Old Etowah Iron Works.” Dixie (n.d.), 41-44.
Cooper, Walter G. Letter to F.S. Cooper on September 16. Rome: John Paul Cooper Family Papers, 1929.
Cooper, Walter G. “Letter to Frederick S. Cooper.” Rome: John Paul Cooper Family Papers, 1938. Last modified January 6, 1938.
Cooper, Walter G. “Letter to Frederick S. Cooper.” Rome. Last modified April 28, 1938.
Cooper, Walter G. “Letter to Mr. F.S. Cooper August 16, 1929.” John Paul Cooper Family Papers. Last modified August 16, 1929.
Davis, Jr., Robert S. “Trace Elements of A Vanished Empire: The Story of the Community of Etowah.” North Georgia Journal, Spring 1988, 31-34.
Parker, David B. “Mark Anthony Cooper (1800-1885).” New Georgia Encyclopedia. Last modified August 21, 2013. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/mark-anthony-cooper-1800-1885.
Russell, Lisa M. Lost Towns of North Georgia. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2016.
Russell, Lisa M. Underwater Ghost Towns of North Georgia. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2018.
Wright, Barry. John Paul Cooper: Georgia Giant in the Revival of Cotton During the Early 1900’s. Washington: Gorham Printing of Centralia, 2017.
Wright, III, Barry. Email Interview. January 2019.
[1] Lisa M. Russell, Lost Towns of North Georgia (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2016)
[10] Mark A. Cooper, “Mark Anthony Cooper’s Remembrance of The Old Major,” John Paul Cooper Family Papers, last modified 1958.
[11] David B. Parker, “Mark Anthony Cooper (1800-1885),” New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified August 21, 2013, https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/mark-anthony-cooper-1800-1885.
[12] Barry Wright, III, Email Interview, January 2019.
[16] Eugene Cooper, “The Cartersville American has this about the burning of Major Cooper’s residence,” The Atlanta Constitution, July 10, 1884, http://www.newspapers.com/clip/369487/the_atlanta_constitution.
[17] Barry Wright, III, Email Interview, January 2019.
[18] John Paul Cooper, Letter to Mr. George H. Aubrey, (Cartersville, GA: John Paul Cooper Family Papers, 1916).
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“Scattered words and phrases hide your word design; it may be time for a writing makeover. Rewriting eLearning content starts by using your word-processing tools to spot wordiness. With practice, concise writing will become your natural style.”
Are you a word hoarder?
Do you think most learners actively read and engage with the text in your eLearning courses? Or do they skim through walls of text just to click through the slides and get to the “good” parts (animations, videos, etc.)?
Words are a pillar of good design. To grab learners at “Hello,” we must start designing our words. Like many writers, I find certain aspects of writing and proofreading are excruciating. Deadlines and client constraints cause me to take shortcuts. Careful revision is sometimes the easy sacrifice. But I found an answer, and in this article I offer it to you. You can put it to work today, using a tool you already own.
Writing and feng shui
In our field, things change fast. More often than not, we juggle multiple aspects of our projects. Content writing can become little more than a “copy and paste” job, based on what subject-matter experts provide. After all, writing and proofreading are not always quite as much fun as creating a visually attractive slide, a great interaction, a video, or even a game.
To leave our learners with something of substance, we need to pay more attention to our text, whether that’s text on a slide, instructions for a learning interaction, or something else. If we want learners to actually read what we write, we must write, read, and revise. Editing does not have to be drudgery.
“Feng shui” is an ancient practice based on selecting the optimal arrangement to encourage positive energy flow. Interior designers have used this phrase to describe perfect placements of objects and surfaces. Feng shui, though often thought of as a philosophy that can be applied to architecture and interior design, has a message for writers as well. Instructional designers can borrow ideas from feng shui for writing to encourage information flow and keep the learner reading.
Look at your content with an attitude of feng shui. Remove word clutter. Refocus your writing. Where to begin? I want to reintroduce you to your word processing software.
Declutter with find and replace
Many of us, myself included, fall in love with what we write, and love is blind. Lucky for us, MS Word, and every other word processor, has a “find and replace” function. Use “find and replace” to cut through your mind’s ability to ignore writing weak spots. Bruce Ross-Larson, in his book Edit Yourself (see “Reference” at the end of this article), helps content writers find the words and phrases scattered across your work that derail your learner’s engagement. With the help of Larson and other writing mentors we can clean up the clutter.
Five red flags to find and revise
Search your writing and find these five red flags to clean up the clutter.
Titles and headingsFirst look at your titles. Titles are the front door to your content. Well-formatted headlines are inviting while all capitals yell at your guests. As instructional designers we serve the client. Sometimes clients have text-formatting preferences that may not follow grammar standards. Start with a unified style guide combining the client’s wishes with good grammar.
Try this: Headlines or titles have three formats, according to the newest style-guide for digital media, The Yahoo! Style Guide. The editors suggest you choose between sentence case (written like a sentence), all upper case, or title case (capitalize all the words except tiny words: “a,” “an,” “and,” “at,” “but,” “by,” “for,” “in,” “nor,” “of,” “on,” “or,” “so,” “the,” “to,” “up,” and “yet). To create clutter-free writing, use title case. Write a title or headline that draws your learner into the content and be consistent across the slides with your title format.
ItIt can be a problem. While many explanations tell us why it can make writing look primitive, focus on ambiguity. If it does not refer to a specific subject and only to a thought in the writer’s head, we leave too many words with too little meaning. Starting a sentence with “It is . . .” is a warning sign for word clutter.
Try this: Find every instance of it in your text using your word processor’s Search and Replace function. Look at each time you used it in a sentence. Ask: Where is the subject of it? Where is the location of it? What does it mean? Can we cut or reword it?
There isThere is can be as problematic the word “it.” Expletives, “it is,” “there is,” and “there are,” add unnecessary words and weaken the message. Readers prefer simple subject and verb construction—in that order.
Try this: Search for “There is” or “There are” in your text. See if you can reword by putting the real subject first. According to The Grammar Girl, aka Mignon Fogarty, “The trick to figuring out what verb to use is to find the real subject of the sentence.”
The___of / Of___the Nominalizations and unnecessary infinitive phrases like the___of and of___the can create word confusion. You want your readers to flow through your eLearning content and learn. Look at your writing and see if you have a sentence like this: In the field of retail sales an associate must learn customer service. Revise, eliminating the/of: A retail sales associate must learn customer service.
Try this: Search your content for the word, “of.” Find how “of” is used and see if you can revise or remove unnecessary words.
To and more . . .Stop writing in circles and be direct. Circumlocution is using many words when a few would do. Instead of: Your manager has the ability to make your work productive. Write: Your manager can make your work productive.
Try this: Look for words or phrases like “to,” “it is,” “that is,” “that are,” “in accordance with,” “on the occasion of,” “at this/at that,” “is ___ to,” “up the,” “out the,” and “who are.” Find and revise redundant phrases into succinct sentences. Never use extra words without adding extra meaning.
Scattered words and phrases hide your word design; it may be time for a writing makeover. Rewriting eLearning content starts by using your word processing tools to spot wordiness. With practice, concise writing will become your natural style. For help rearranging your words and phrases, consult Purdue OWL, Grammar Girl, and Edit Yourself (see “Reference” below).
Brian Carroll, in Writing for Digital Media (see “Reference”), says, “Hemingway described prose not as interior decoration but as architecture.” Feng shui is not so much interior decorating as it is architecture. Architects who use feng shui do so with the intent of building toward positive progressive energy. In the same way, well-constructed content ebbs and flows, providing learners with a satisfying finish.
Reference
Barr, C. (ed.) The Yahoo! Style Guide: Writing for an Online Audience. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2011.
Carroll, B. Writing for Digital Media. New York, NY: Routledge, 2010.
Rhetoric is not just for liars anymore. Politicians have given “rhetoric” a bad name. This current political season is no different than any other. People trying to get elected use words to get you to do things – vote for them. At some point, the word, “rhetoric” will be spewed out as if it were a dirty word. Don’t sully the reputation of this beautiful word, “rhetoric.
Watch this interesting video, produced by Clemson, that will put the “rhet” back into “rhetoric.”
Michael D.C. Drout is an associate professor of English at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. He teaches Old and Middle English, medieval literature, Chaucer, Fantasy, and science fiction. Drout says:
“We tend to think of “rhetoric” either as something bad and manipulative (when we discount speech as “just a bunch of rhetoric”) or as something elevated and perhaps overblown, but in fact rhetoric is simply (and complexly)the art of using words to change the world.
The word “rhetor” means “orator” or “teacher,”and the art of rhetoric was taught in ancient Greece for public purposes: convincing and inspiring one’s peers so that they would take courses of action you believed to be wise.
Cassandra
Don’t be a Cassandra
Drout further encourages us not to be a “Cassandra”.
In ancient Greek literature, Cassandra tricked the god Apollo into giving her the gift of prophecy. But as a punishment, Apollo cursed Cassandra to be right always but never to have anyone believe her. Cassandra thus exemplifies the rhetorically deficient person: She knows what is right, but she is unable to convince anyone to do anything about it.
I do not want to be a Cassandra. How about you?
Logos,Ethos, Pathos
Drout gives us a good way to remember the important rhetoric elements of logos, ethos, and pathos.
You can think of the three pieces, logos, ethos,and pathos, as logic, ethics, and sympathy (the root words are recognizable).
Fallacies
My son, who agrees with me about most things political made a comment that kind of made me feel good, but also made me say, “Hmmm.” We were discussion political issues when he said,
” Mom, you should have a talk show about politics.”
Maybe I should. I know for certain, I need to understand and identify some of the logical fallacies. Some of the examples of these logical fallacies are mine and may contain rhetorical errors and thus another kind of logical fallacy. Please do not automatically assign Argumentum ad Hominem to me!
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. This is a fallacy somewhat related to asserting the consequent. This is a hard one to avoid. This is assuming that the converse of a true statement is automatically true. “The economy is failing, it must be George Bush’s fault. The war in Iran was a victor, it must be Obama’s presidency.”
Denying the Antecedent. People incorrectly assume the invese is true. Inverse takes a true statement and puts NOT on both sides. “If the economy is not failing, it must not be George Bush’s fault. The war in Iran was not a victor, it must not be Obama’s fault.”
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. This fallacy is when a writer assumes that because something came after something else, the first thing caused the second thing. “Gore was in office during the birth of the internet, thus Gore invented the internet”.
Petitio Principii (Begging the Question). This fallacy is abused by newspaper columnists according to Professor Drout. This means you have asked the other side to concede the main point in the argument. A simple example:
If we are arguing about what to eat for dinner, you say, “just to speed things up, can’t you at least agree that we won’t eat seafood?” so that we can move on. But if I wanted to eat seafood, asking me to concede, for the sake of argument, that we won’t eat seafood, is begging the question: asking for me to give in preemptively.
To be fair and balanced…
A red flag for this fallacy:the use of an adjective or adverb to perform all the logical work in the sentence. When politicians campaign on the platform of eliminating “wasteful spending,” they are in fact begging the question. Everyone is against wasteful spending; there is no need to have an argument about it. The real question (which has been begged here) is which spending is wasteful and which is not. Therefore, the word “wasteful” begs the question by trying to get you to agree that whatever spending the politician is against, you’re against too. You’ll see that this fallacy is related to the enthymeme: It assumes that you share the enthymeme with the speaker even when you don’t.
Attacking the Messenger: Argumentum ad Hominem
Argumentum ad hominem is probably most commonly used today in attacks on people’s intelligence: Candidate X is stupid; therefore his policies must be bad. Note that “candidate X is stupid, therefore we should not elect him” is a reasonable syllogism (with the enthymeme of “we should not elect stupid people”), but this says nothing about the policies the candidate is advocating.
The other day I heard a “talking head” or political spokesman comment with a sarcastic chuckle, “Thinking people and a Donald Trump supporter? Those phrases do not go together.” So, just because someone wants a political change for our country and supports an outlier like Trump, they are automatically – stupid? This is a childish argument and a logical fallacy.
Tu Quoque.
An example would be “famous actor X says that population control is a good idea, but he has eleven children.” Famous actor X may be a hypocrite, but that does not address the merits of the idea of population control, whatever they may be. The tu quoque fallacy is probably the most common in all of political discourse.
Red Herring (Ignoratio Elenchi—Irrelevant Thesis). Because tu quoque focuses on the hypocrisy of the speaker, it distracts the hearer or reader from the real issues. That is the same general idea of the red herring, which is an attempt to change the subject from one in which the speaker is losing to one in which he is likely to win.
There are some interesting thoughts on my “old” blog about writing:
