Travel with me today back to the 1810s, to the westernmost outpost on the Georgia frontier before you crossed into Creek or Cherokee lands. We’re in the Piedmont, that rolling, red-clay land south of the Appalachians of hills, hardwood forests, creeks, and rivers. At the last stagecoach stop west, near the source of the Appalachee River, local farmers established Hog Mountain community, a place where they could buy, sell, and trade livestock. By 1811, Moore and Maltbie, natives of Connecticut, ran a trading post. Included among the inventory of goods:
Corded and feather beds, walnut sideboards, Windsor chairs, candlesticks, spinning wheels, looms, reels, looking glasses, pewter basins, chairs, copper stills, Dutch ovens, iron spiders, teakettles, cedar piggins, jugs, decanters, London window glass, wine glasses, dueling pistols, shot, powder horns, gunpowder, saw-gins, Swede iron, saddles, gigs, harness, corsets for men, tin trunks, bombazets (thin twill-woven worsted cloth with smooth finished used for dresses and coats), osnaburgs (rough, coarse, durable cotton fabric in plain weave originally made of flax), saddlebags, muscovado sugar, Jamaica and Antigua rum, Spanish brandy, Philadelphia rye whiskey, Teneriffe wine, claret, Holland gin, Malaga wine, London porter, Spanish “segars”
Notice the corsets for men?
When Moore died on a trip to New York to purchase goods, William Maltbie prepared to dispose of the floundering business. And then he met Philadelphia Winn, the thirteen-year-old daughter of Elisha Winn, a justice and later judge and state representative who owned over seven thousand acres and a plantation-plain house on the river (see The Elisha Winn House, https://www.hhhistory.com/search?q=Elisha+winn+house). William and Philadelphia were married in the home’s parlor. William continued to run the trading post until 1821, when he helped establish the town of Lawrenceville, where he became the first postmaster.
Shadrack Bogan moved to Hog Mountain in 1815. He ran a trading post that sold beads to Cherokee women and blankets and firewater to the braves and soon built Hog Mountain House. An interesting tale of that inn is included in my new release, A Counterfeit Betrothal, of four travelers who stopped there, then were never seen again, though their relatives came to search for them. Years later, their carriage was found on a distant hill.
A central fixture of Hog Mountain community was Fort Daniel, speculated to have been built around the turn of the century prior (see A Fort on the Georgia Frontier, https://www.hhhistory.com/search?q=A+Fort+on+the+Georgia+Frontier). By 1812, Red Stick Creek warriors allied to the British posed a threat to the frontier, so in the fall and winter of 1813, Fort Daniel was rebuilt and militia sent to relieve the locals already serving in ten-day rotations. Isham Williams, a local cattle drover, supplied beef to the soldiers. Fort Daniel served as a staging point for the building of Atlanta’s Peachtree Road, where the militia constructed Fort Peachtree.
Fort Daniel remained largely forgotten until its rediscovery on private property in 2009. Gwinnett County purchased the site, and archeological work and living history events continue under the oversight of the Fort Daniel Foundation. I’ll be at their annual October fair with A Counterfeit Betrothal. If you’re local, come see me and enjoy some Federal-era fun!
At the farthest Georgia outpost this side of hostile Creek Territory, Jared Lockridge serves his country as a scout to redeem his father’s botched heritage. Then he comes across a burning cabin and a traumatized woman just widowed by a fatal shot. Lame in one foot, Esther has always known she is secondhand goods, but the gentle carpenter-turned-scout draws out her heart…even though his is already pledged to another. His family’s love offers hope even as violence erupts along the frontier—and Jared’s investigation into local incidents brings danger to their doorstep.
https://www.amazon.com/Counterfeit-Betrothal-Scouts-Georgia-Frontier-ebook/dp/B0C8ZP46QD/
Denise Weimer writes historical and contemporary romance from her home in North Georgia and also serves as a freelance editor and the Acquisitions & Editorial Liaison for Wild Heart Books. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.
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Thank you for your post today. I love the description of the items available for purchase, and I don't understand corsets for men with no mention of women!!! And that marriage to a thirteen year old!! Although, a thirteen year old girl then would have been vastly different than now. But still....
ReplyDeleteInteresting post, Denise! Living in Colorado, I think of trading posts as being more of western phenomenon, forgetting the west two hundred years ago was the far west of Georgia. So it reminded me once again that we are a relatively new country. I also noticed the corset for men as well. I'm curious what they were for. Hold in their tummies? Thanks for the post!
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