Jonathan Norcross

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Jonathan Norcross in his 80s

Jonathan Norcross (April 7, 1808 - 1898) was the fourth mayor of Atlanta and an important citizen in its history.

1 Millwright
2 Public life
3 Notes
4 References

[edit] Millwright

Born the son of a clergyman in Orono, Maine where he was eventually taught the trade of millwright. He went to Cuba where he put up a mill for making sugar. He then attended lectures in mechanics at Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and taught school in North Carolina. In 1836 he took charge of lumber interests in Southern Georgia for Northern capitalists. While there in Putnam County, Georgia he filed US patent 3210 for a Reciprocating Mill-Saw Guide in August 1843 ↑ . A year later in August, 1844 he came to the future site of Atlanta (then called Marthasville) setting himself up as a successful dry goods merchant, sawmill operator and became a prominent citizen. His sawmill mainly produced crossties and string timbers for the construction of the Georgia Railroad. He invented a vertical saw with a circular wheel 40 feet in diameter which was adjusted in an almost horizontal position and could saw 1,000 feet of lumber a day. In 1847 he led the first effort to have the Georgia state capital moved there from Milledgeville (which finally did occur in 1868). Two years later, he co-founded the Daily Intelligencer.

[edit] Public life

He won the election of 1850 as a candidate for the Moral Party against the surprisingly qualified candidate from the "Free and Rowdy Party", attorney Leonard C. Simpson. He presided over a town split between law-and-order and the almost war-like Rowdies; a town with 40 drinking establishments and a thriving red light district. He made life unconfortable enough that most of the Rowdies moved a mile south-west to Snake Nation or to Slabtown.

Starting in 1856 he was the first president of the Georgia Air Line Railway which was to run through the Carolinas and Virginia facilitating traffic from New York to New Orleans. He failed to get funds from the Georgia General Assembly largely because of intense lobbying from competing Georgia Railroad and Central of Georgia Railway. After Norcross got a bond commitment from the city of Atlanta, Lemuel P. Grant joined the list of adversaries supporting a different route (Georgia Western Railway) and by 1860 both of those rail ventures were dead.

Norcross was in his 50s during the American Civil War and notable only for being on the committee of citizens (with William Markham) that surrendered the city to Union General Henry Slocum.

As the Republican nominee for Governor of Georgia in 1876, he was soundly defeated by Democrat Alfred H. Colquitt. He died at the age of 90, the last surviving ante-bellum mayor of Atlanta. He had been married twice (in 1845 and in 1877) and left one son, Rev. Virgil C. Norcross.

The town of Norcross, Georgia (now a suburban Atlanta city) was named in his honor.