From the second floor of this magnificent home, Barrington King could look out over his mills and vast holdings.

“These mills and the whole country around here is owned by King & Co., they own all the stores, provisions, etc.: they allow no liquor sold in the town, and in truth run everything to suit themselves – Had their own paper currency, which circulated all through this country as better than Confederate scrip …”
(from The History of Chicago Board of Trade Battery by John A. Nourse from records at the Chicago Historical Society, referencing July 7, 1864 during the Civil War and the burning of the Roswell Mills.)

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Success, Family Tragedy, and Change
In 1845 Archibald Smith came to Roswell to escape the summer heat and insects of coastal Georgia, bringing with him his wife, children and thirty slaves to help run the 300+ acre plantation. Tragedy struck this affluent farm family with the death of their oldest son Willie during the Civil War. Perhaps it was the loss of Willie that caused them to hold on to other possessions, or maybe it was that they inherently knew the many artifacts left behind would continue to tell their story. Smith Plantation has catalogued over 14,000 items of memorabilia belonging to the original family. See how time changed and how this farm home would progress from a time when slaves worked the fields to the day in 1986 when descendants of the original family sold the home to the City of Roswell, with the condition that the family’s maid, Mamie Cotton, could live in the big house for the remainder of her years.

Click on above photo for more information on Smith Plantation.