Richard Peters and Early Atlanta History

Summary

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Stuff You Missed in History Class: Richard Peters and Early Atlanta History

Podcast by iHeartPodcasts | Hosted by Holly Fry & Tracy B. Wilson
Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores the life and legacy of Richard Peters, a pivotal yet often overlooked figure in the early development and rebuilding of Atlanta, Georgia. Hosts Holly Fry and Tracy B. Wilson dissect Peters’ integral role in the city’s railroads, real estate, post-Civil War reconstruction, and civic development, all while unpacking his complex personal background and ambivalent stance on issues like slavery and Southern identity. The conversation is rich with anecdotes from Peters’ dictated memoirs, reflective commentary, and numerous connections to the cityscape of present-day Atlanta.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why Richard Peters? (03:07–04:53)

• Trigger for the Topic: Holly shares how a walk through an Atlanta Airport history exhibit rekindled her long-standing interest in Peters.
  • “There he is again. Richard Peters is really interesting for a few ways.” — Holly (03:41)
• Significance: Peters was central to Atlanta’s identity: railroads, city institutions, and especially the city’s rebuilding after the Civil War. Sometimes called “the father of Atlanta.”
• Approach: Holly teases psychoanalyzing Peters (with humor), adding a personal touch to the narrative.

Early Life and Family Background (04:53–09:54)

• Birth: Born 1810, Germantown, Pennsylvania. Not a southerner by origin.
• Parentage and Upbringing: Father Ralph was a failed merchant; Judge Richard Peters (grandfather) was a U.S. District Judge, helping support the family.
• Education: Numerous relocations due to financial woes; strong in math but struggled in Latin.
  • Quote: “The only thrashing I ever received from my father” — Peters on his poor Latin grades, as recounted by Holly (07:50)
• Hired Labor: Reference to Hessian redemptionists (indentured former POWs), highlighting ambiguous attitudes toward unfree labor even in the North.

Formative Adulthood and Entry into Engineering (09:54–19:38)

• Private School Era: Paid for by grandfather; lived with maternal grandfather; resisted leaving the country life.
  • Quote: “They captured me and took me off in their carriage.” — Peters, quipping about being sent to city school (07:50)
• Maple Sugar Venture: First taste of earning, influenced later work ethic.
• How Civil Engineering Took Hold:
  • Encountered a peer making good money as a rodman (16:12)
  • Through family connections, first apprenticed in architecture (Franklin Institute), then civil engineering.
  • Moved into railroad surveying and eventually led projects like the Camden & Amboy Railway.
• First Move South: Hired as chief engineer for the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to Athens (19:38).
  • Sacrificed personal comfort (sold belongings, borrowed to travel) but quickly found success.

Atlanta’s Beginnings: Naming and Railroads (22:50–24:44)

• Marthasville to Atlanta: Peters and J. Edgar Thompson coined “Atlanta” for brevity and adapted railroad logs; “Atlantic” (masculine) to “Atlanta” (feminine).
  • Quote: “The name gave universal satisfaction, except to my friend Garnett, who was very much annoyed. But he could not overcome the popular move.” — Richard Peters (24:23)
• Role in the City: Significant investments in land as the railroad terminal was formalized.

Family Life and Business Expansion (24:44–28:47)

• Marriage: Married Mary Jane Thompson, had 7 children; marriage was happy and fruitful (25:32).
• Real Estate Acumen: Constantly bought affordable land and later sold at immense profit. Developed farms and horticulture ventures with an eye for speculation and diversification.
  • “His animals routinely won prizes, and he was able to sell them for very high prices...” — Holly (26:10)
• Civic Advice: Warned fellow farmers against monocropping cotton exclusively.
• Industrial Firsts: Opened Atlanta’s first steam-powered flour mill; lost money but made it back through savvy sales and land appreciation.
  • The land eventually contained parts of downtown Atlanta — including Fox Theatre & Georgia Tech (27:20–28:47).

The Civil War and Peters’ Ambivalent Loyalties (32:49–36:28)

• Northern Roots, Southern Investments: Peters’ writings reflect hesitance toward secession—not on moral grounds, but because he believed the Confederacy would lose, and slavery would be abolished anyway.
  • Quote: “My opposition... was based on the fact that failure and the blotting out of slavery would be the result.” — Richard Peters, as read by Holly (33:14)
• Enslaved Labor: Benefited directly from hiring enslaved laborers for railroad work. Acknowledged but did not challenge the system.
• Civil War Strategies: Ran blockading companies that moved goods through Union lines, made significant profits, and used supplies to assist local families and hospitals (35:42).

Postwar Reconstruction and Rebuilding (36:28–39:54)

• After Atlanta’s Burning: Family fled to Augusta as Sherman approached; Peters returned determined to rebuild.
• Political Influence: Welcomed Union General Pope, advocated reconciliation, and used his influence to push for relocating Georgia’s capital from Milledgeville to Atlanta.
  • “Atlanta became the new capital of Georgia... Peters served briefly on the city council so that he could help guide the city through reconstruction.” — Tracy (38:19)
• Urban Development: Subdivided and named many of Atlanta’s iconic streets, matching the “tree” motif of Peachtree Street and nodding to his home state with “Penn Avenue.”
  • Donated land for what would become Georgia Tech.

Later Ventures and Legacy (39:54–41:56)

• City Institutions: Established Atlanta’s first public street railway, built the first professional baseball field, invested in hotels for visiting officials.
• Yankee Paradox: North-born Peters was a driving force behind many institutions identified today as part of “Southern” Atlanta culture.
  • “A northerner was so deeply crucial to the rebuilding and economic success of Atlanta after the Civil War...” — Holly (40:47)
• Final Years and Death: Built a grand Victorian home on Peachtree Street; stayed active in business until his death in 1889.
• Will and Resting Place: Brief will left nearly $1 million equally to wife and children. Buried at Oakland Cemetery, still featured at historical events.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Holly on Atlanta’s Identity:
  “All of the things that a lot of people will be like, this is southern culture — from Philadelphia, my friends.” (39:54)
• Peters on Marthasville-to-Atlanta Naming:
  “Completion of the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to Atlanta. The name gave universal satisfaction, except to my friend Garnett, who was very much annoyed.” (24:23)
• Peter’s Ambivalence on Slavery and Secession:
  “I took an active part in trying to prevent the secession movement... failure and the blotting out of slavery would be the result.” (33:14)
• On Postwar Reconciliation:
  “He understood that just bucking against the North after losing the war would hurt the city and the state and the whole region.” — Tracy (36:28)
• On Land Speculation:
  “Portions of this land have been sold for one to two thousand dollars an acre. That land is what makes up the area downtown today...” — Tracy (28:24)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

| Timestamp | Segment & Highlights | | --- | --- | | 03:07 | Holly's airport exhibit story; why Peters? | | 04:53 | Peters' family background and formative years | | 11:58 | Early career—accidental turn toward civil engineering | | 16:12 | First-hand civil engineering experiences; Southward move | | 22:50 | Naming of Atlanta; impact on railroad expansion | | 24:44 | Marriage and start of family/personal investments | | 27:20 | Atlanta's first factories; business missteps and recoveries | | 32:49 | Onset of Civil War; Peters' nuanced North-South identity | | 36:28 | Postwar devastation and strategies for city recovery | | 38:52 | Urban planning, philanthropy, and legacy, including Georgia Tech | | 39:54 | Founding businesses, institutions, transit, and entertainment | | 41:56 | Peters' later years, will, death, and burial |

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Tone and Language

• The hosts balance scholarly detail (“Peters’ investments... land now contains Fox Theatre & Georgia Tech”) with their trademark warm, conversational, and gently humorous delivery.
• Frequent personal asides from Holly and Tracy create intimacy and context—e.g., relating present-day Atlanta landmarks or reflecting on Peters’ life choices.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a sweeping overview of Richard Peters’ journey from a troubled Pennsylvania upbringing to his transformation into a cornerstone of Atlanta’s infrastructure, real estate, and civic identity. It’s a story of ambition, adaptability, and paradox—one that reveals how a Northern transplant became central to the heart and soul of one of the South’s greatest cities, while navigating the moral complexities of the Civil War era. Whether you’re an Atlantan, a rail enthusiast, or just love lesser-told history, this episode brims with insight, wry commentary, and tangible connections to Atlanta today.

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Transcript

[Tracy B. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

See full [e-mail] welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

And I'm Tracy B. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

Hey, guess what? This episode is thanks to the Atlanta Airport.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

So funny to me, sort of. I think I have also had Atlanta Airport episode ideas.

[Holly Fry]

Listen, the Atlanta airport has a lot of art and history exhibits in various places. Some of them are wonderful and really beautifully curated. Some of the sky clubs have really good art exhibits. There's just a lot of good stuff going on in the Atlanta airport. Listen, it's my hub, but I also like it. So I wrote Richard Peters down as a topic years and years and years ago. And then recently I was walking through the airport cause I don't want to take the plane train. So I'll walk from concourse to concourse and I walk through the exhibit on the history of Atlanta and I was

[Tracy B. Wilson]

like, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

[Holly Fry]

There he is again. There he is. Richard Peters is really interesting for a few ways. Not just because he really is responsible for a lot of institutions that kind of make up the identity of the city of Atlanta, although he is responsible for those things. He's interesting to me because he has this really unique position regarding the US Civil War that we will talk about because he's also interesting for all of that other stuff. I also have some theories about him and why he was the person he was that are for behind the scenes. So get ready for me to psychoanalyze a person without any skill in that arena. But I just. I see you, Richard Peters. I know what you're doing. He is sometimes called the father of Atlanta. You could argue that one way or the other. But he really was responsible for a lot of things. He worked in railroads, he developed a lot of the firsts of Atlanta in terms of like transportation and various other institutions. And he was really hugely influential in the city's rebuilding efforts following the Civil War. So that's who we're talking about today.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Richard Peters was born on November 10, 1810, in not anywhere in Georgia or even the South. Nope, nope. Germantown, Pennsylvania, which is now a suburb of Philadelphia. His father, Ralph Peters, was a merchant, but lost his whole fortune on bad deals. His mother, Catherine Cunningham, was of Irish descent. And Peters noted in his autobiography that that spelling of his mother's family name changed multiple Times including to basically look like Cunningham, a very English spelling, but also in a much more Irish spelling that has the middle letters as N, Y, N, G, H, not the configuration that you might expect to see for Cunningham, her father. So Richard's grandfather worked in shipping and did pretty well until privateers captured his entire fleet. Because of Ralph Peters business faltering, Richard's grandfather, Judge Richard Peters, supported the family just almost entirely financially. Judge Peters was very closely tied to the beginning of the United States as a country and was appointed Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Pennsylvania in 1792 by George Washington. Richard had numerous siblings. There were four brothers, Ralph, John, William and Edward, and then four sisters, Sally, Ann, Mary and Nellie.

[Holly Fry]

When Richard was five, he was enrolled in public school. He changed schools when he was 7 and the family moved to Belmont, Pennsylvania. Not long after that move, Richard, who loved looking out the upstairs windows of their new home at the view of the city of Philadelphia at night, fell from one of those windows and he broke his arm. And that injury actually bothered him for the rest of his life. He later said of it, quote, it was badly set by Dr. Chapman afterwards, the celebrated surgeon of Philadelphia, and has been crooked at the Elbo to this day. That was a statement he gave in his 70s. He stayed mad about it.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The family's time in Belmont went poorly financially as well. Richard's father, Ralph, started a dairy there to make butter and to sell milk. Neither of those things went well. Soon, Richard's grandfather had become so frustrated with Ralph that the family had to move away to the country, where Judge Peters gave his son a job managing undeveloped land. The family kept moving around a lot as Ralph Peters seemed to just make one bad decision after another. Richard's education continued, although it was disjointed because of all of these changes in schools. He was very good at math, but did so poorly in Latin that it resulted in what he said was the only thrashing he ever received from his father.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, that thrashing sounded quite bad in the description I read. In Richard's early teens, it was decided that he was going to go to Philadelphia to be enrolled in private school. This was going to be paid for by his paternal grandfather, and he was going to live with his maternal grandfather in the city while he attended classes. Peter later described this transition in his life this way. Quote, a family council had been held when it was decided that I was becoming too fond of the wild country life and that I had some talent in me worthy of being cultivated. Therefore, they captured me and Took me off in their carriage. And he mentions being captured and characterizing it that way, because when he got an inkling that this plan was happening, he actually ran away from home into the woods.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

One of the interesting asides that comes up in Peters account of his youth is his reference to some of the men who worked for his grandfather. Peters, quote, the old gardener Henry, who was deaf as a post, and the fanner, a man of 70, were Hessians. They were called redemptionists and had been made prisoners during the Revolutionary War. Grandfather bought them under the agreement that they should redeem themselves by their labor. So during the Revolutionary War, an estimated quarter of the troops who fought for Britain were Germans who had been hired or forced into service to bolster Britain's numbers. We have an episode on these Hessian soldiers in the archive, but it is from 2013, so, so long ago that it's not even in all the players. Now, these Hessian soldiers were known for their skill, but they often bore the brunt of blame for the British losses. Some of them deserted during the war, but a lot of others, including ones who had been prisoners of war, stayed in North America after the war was over, in part because they did not have a clear way back to Europe. So it seems that Peters benefited from this misfortune by using some of these displaced Germans as indentured servants.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, I want to mention that because other ways that labor is used in kind of dicey and questionable manners comes up later. And also, we don't have a firm sense of where Richard Peters stood on all of this, but we'll talk about it some more, if it were not already sort of obvious from just the pieces we've relayed. When Richard Peters shared stories about his father, they were not exactly glowing. He very clearly blamed his father, Ralph, for the misfortunes of the family and specifically for the impact that it had on his education. He recounted the end of his time in private school in Philadelphia this way. Quote, at the close of my two years of schooling in the city, for which grandfather became very tired of paying, I returned to the Bradford county farm for a year. It was at this time Judge Peters deeded a thousand acres of land to my father in trust for me to provide for my college education. But through carelessness and neglect, the deed was not recorded and the land was sold for taxes without having done me the good that was intended.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The first income Richard had was through the production of maple sugar from trees on the family property. During that year after private school, with the help of one of the hired hands he did everything from making the troughs to draining and collecting the SAP and boiling the SAP down. He made $12 and he said of it, quote, it was the first money I had ever made. I was very proud of it. He also credited that year with preparing him for his career writing, quote, the country. Life and healthful exercise prepared me well to make a success subsequently as a civil engineer. My rugged constitution was formed there and I could out walk and outwork any of the assistant engineers when in the field and my services were always in demand. And the way he became interested in that career was really accidental.

[Holly Fry]

We're going to talk about that and more after a sponsor break.

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[Holly Fry]

When Richard Peters was selling his maple sugar in Tawanda, Pennsylvania, he ran into an old schoolmate who told him that he was making a dollar fifty a day to work as a rodman on a survey team. Peters did not think this former classmate was very smart. So he thought, well, if he can make that much money, I can make more. If I get into that area of work. And then soon, thanks to his family connections, Richard had a meeting with architect William Strickland to try to get into something in that arena. But Richard's handwriting was quite poor, and Strickland told him to take a year to study drawing, mathematics and writing and then come back and talk to him again. Peters enrolled at the Franklin Institute, and after a year and a half of study there, he met with Strickland once again. And this time he was given a job making the working drawings of various projects that the firm was working on. But Peters realized that he didn't really have the talent to make it as an architect. He talks about, like, comparing himself to other people who he thought were not that educated, who could just whip out these beautiful drawings much faster than him. And he kind of realized, like, this isn't a great spot for me. So he asked Strickland if he could move into a civil engineering role, which he did. But he left that after six months because he didn't feel like at the architecture firm he was really learning as much as he could, and he thought he could learn the job much better if he was in a different position elsewhere.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The next position Peters was able to get once again through family connections, was working on a survey as a rodman, collecting measurements for what would become the Camden and Amboy Railway. This actually ties back to our recent episode on George Stephenson. In the early days of railways. Peters notes that, quote, as one location was made in the years 1830 and 1831, before it had been ascertained positively that locomotives could be employed to advantage. The line of road was constructed for horsepower with 600 foot curves put in wherever a hundred dollars could be saved. Peters was eventually promoted and put in charge of a viaduct along the line in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. This is different from the current Coatesville Viaduct, which was built in 1902.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, that is a historical viaduct. I didn't want anybody to be confused. In late 1834, that project was completed and Richard Peters returned to Philadelphia. And there he spent his entire savings, as he put it, quote, paying my board and frolicking with the boys. But he also had the good fortune to have a new job turn up just as his money ran out. And this was to take him away from Pennsylvania and into the south as he was hired to work as chief engineer on the Georgia railroad that was planned to run between Augusta and Athens, Georgia. This was one of those roads that we also discussed in our George Stevenson episode that was to be a road that was a Road, as we would think of a road, that also had a rail running on it, literally a railroad, so that horse, carts or locomotives could use it as needed. Before he went, he spent a week visiting his mother and siblings, and then he headed to Georgia to start work. Because he had used up all of his money, he did have to sell some things, and he had to get a loan from a relative to make the trip. But once he arrived, he got an advance on his salary, and then he paid that money back immediately.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The trip to Georgia started in February, 1835. During a brutal winter, Peters traveled by steamer to Charleston, and then from there by rail to Augusta. That winter was one of the coldest ever on record for a lot of the south. It destroyed most of the citrus groves in Florida. So even once Peter got to more southern parts of the country, there was just really no relief from this cold.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, it was literally like one of the worst moments in human history that you could pick to make a trip like this, given the technology of the day. But once he got to work on the railroad, it became very apparent that his knowledge base was a lot more expansive than other engineers on the project. And Peters was promoted to principal assistant to the railroad superintendent. In 1837, he was promoted again, this time to the role of superintendent, and he got that news while he was in a survey camp in Greensboro, Georgia, and he had to immediately leave and make his way to his new office in Augusta.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Because his pay had increased dramatically, Peters was able to start building wealth through investment. He bought a lot of stock in the company, purchased a sawmill, and also bought tracts of land that had pine growing on them. He was conscientious enough to be very careful never to let his personal investments and his work cross over. He would never make a business deal with any company that had any ties to his lumber business.

[Holly Fry]

During these years, Peters was also pretty inventive. He came up with a rudimentary headlight system for train engines. This is completely low tech, but it's also kind of ingenious. He installed a wooden shelf over the smokestack of the engine, and this shelf held a tray of sand. And on top of the sand, they would put pine knots in that were burned, and those burning pine knots would create light. So I'm presuming this is not so much about throwing light ahead all that much as letting people know there's a train coming, because I can't imagine that's really that illuminating to the surrounding area, but that was it, and this was really a necessity for the Georgia Line because it was the first railroad to run at night. Peters later reported that they had fewer accidents at night than they did during the daytime. This may have been because of illumination, but it was also likely because there were no other trains running then.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

By 1845, Peters was ready to focus entirely on his entrepreneurial interests and resigned from the railroad to run a stagecoach that ran from Madison, Georgia to Montgomery, Alabama. This was not a business that he started from scratch. The railroad company had established it and he purchased it. He was also not the sole owner of the business. He and the rest of the owners made a lot of money, and he mentioned that traffic and profits increased significantly during the Mexican American War, which started in 1846. Once the railroad had been completed, though, this stage line started running exclusively in Alabama between Montgomery and Mobile, and Peters was back in the railroad superintendent position. His stage line became a carrier for the US Mail and remained so until the start of the Civil war.

[Holly Fry]

Also in 1846, as the Georgia railroad was completed, it ended in the city of Marthasville. That city had been named by Charles Garnett, a civil engineer. It had been named in honor of the daughter of Governor Wilson Lumpkin, who served as governor of Georgia from 1831 to 1835. Before that, when it was really just a railroad construction site, it was called Terminus. But Marthasville was apparently just too long a name for the railroad. According to Peters, quote, when the Georgia road was completed to this terminus, I consulted Our Chief Engineer, Mr. J. Edgar Thompson, about changing the name of Marthasville because it was so long to write. After several letters on the subject, he proposed the name Atlanta to designate the terminus of the Western and Atlantic road. This he referred to in his letter. Atlantic masculine, Atlanta feminine, a coined word, but well adapted. I accepted it at once and issued circulars by the thousand for distribution throughout the country from Augusta to Tennessee, stating the fact of the completion of the Georgia railroad, giving the rates of freight and passage, the passenger rate being five cents a mile, the freight fifty cents per hundred pounds. The headlines read, Completion of the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to Atlanta. The name gave universal satisfaction, except to my friend Garnett, who was very much annoyed. But he could not overcome the popular move. And at the next meeting of the legislature, a charter was granted to Atlanta. So two railroad guys just decided to change the city's name for the sake of brevity and keeping railroad logs. And that works. I love that they're like, between the two of us, we're just going to do this right.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

We're just going to rename It.

[Holly Fry]

If we put out enough flyers, everybody will believe it.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

As superintendent of the Georgia railroad, Peters was often required in Atlanta for business, and while there, he boarded with Dr. Joseph Thompson. And Richard fell in love with Thompson's daughter, Mary Jane. They got married on February 18, 1848, and moved into a home in Atlanta on the corner of Mitchell and Forsy. In his memoir, Peters says that he, quote, never had any reason to regret my choice, and talks about what a wonderful wife she had been, how their family together is one that he's proud of. The couple had seven children who lived to adulthood. Richard, Nellie, Ralph, Edward, Catherine Quintard, and May, as well as two children who died when they were babies, Joseph and Stephen. Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Also, I feel compelled to say that we reference his memoir a couple times. It's not an official memoir in the traditional sense. It's a recorded oral history that one of his relatives did when he was getting up in age. So it's like his memoir, but it's definitely dictated to someone else, just in case there's confusion. The year before he married Mary Jane, Richard invested in the Atlanta area the same way that he had done in other places. He purchased a farm north of the city where he bred livestock, and he also purchased additional property adjacent to his home in the city so that he could graze cows there. In his recollections about his life, Peters is always really quick to point out how much he purchased plots of land for, and then how much he later sold them for to illustrate how much they appreciated in value, perhaps bolster the fact that he was very smart and savvy. Unlike his father, Richard was really good at identifying investments that would eventually pay off. Even his livestock breeding was done with an eye towards making money. His animals routinely won prizes, and he was able to sell them for very high prices compared to others. He also had his own horticultural program on the farm, where he developed new varieties of plants, again with a mind toward money because he wanted to be able to sell seed. Horticulture was something he would talk about for decades because he worried that Southern farmers were not being savvy and they were just not diverse enough in their crops. Cotton was, of course, a huge driver for the Southern economy, and Peters was always encouraging growers to try other crops. He himself refused to grow cotton because he felt like if cotton failed for any reason, it would just paralyze a lot of finances throughout the region.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

But not all of his efforts were successful right out of the gate. He opened a flour mill in 1856, which was the first steam powered factory in the city, but it could not compete with another mill, Etowah Mill, which was selling its flour at a really low rate, allegedly less than cost. But Peters, who initially lost $20,000 in this mill, was savvy enough to find a way out of it that was also a benefit to him. He explained it plainly this way. Quote I held the mill for a year or two and finally sold the engines at more than their cost for gold to the Confederate government for their powder mills at Augusta. The lot upon which the mills stood, costing $600, was sold to the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company for $20,000, thus paying my losses in the mill, the other stockholders having sold out their interest to me. In the end, this venture proved very profitable as I had bought in order to secure firewood to run the engine, 400 acres of land on Peachtree street, paying for it $5 an acre. Portions of this land have been sold for one to two thousand dollars an acre. That land is what makes up the area downtown today from 3rd street to 8th Street. So that's the land that the Fox Theater and Georgia Tech are now built on.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, among other mainstays of Atlanta.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The hotel I used to stay at when I would come down there and the office was in a different place.

[Holly Fry]

Yep. All right. There we will talk about the Civil War in Atlanta after it burned. After we take a break to hear from the sponsors that keep the show going.

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

Being in Atlanta in the 1850s meant that Richard Peters was right in the thick of the growing conflict that would lead to the U.S. civil War. And he was in this rather unique position because while he had grown up in the north, he had made his home in the South. In his writing he doesn't take a clear stance on the issue of slavery, although he does seem to understand it as a problem. It is also known that he did sometimes use hired enslaved labor, paying their enslavers on his railroad projects as he found that cheaper than hiring white men to do that work. So he definitely benefited from the system of enslavement. But here's how he described his Civil War experience, which really frames a lot of it in ways that are not commonly mentioned. This really jumped out to me as an interesting point of view on it. Quote In 1860-61, I took an active part in trying to prevent the secession movement. My opposition to the measure being based on the fact that failure and the blotting out of slavery would be the result. Very few of the Southern people were conscious of the power of the North. They had been kept in perfect ignorance by politicians and were not aware that the whole civilized world opposed slavery, more especially the English nation. My lifetime old friend, Judge John P. King of Augusta was a Union man at the start and at the end. He prophesied the failure of the Southern cause and wrote daily able articles against secession. A large majority of the thoughtful people of Georgia agreed with his views and were Union men. But the hot heads of the south carried their point. South Carolina taking the lead by bombarding Fort Sumter the thus forcing the other Southern states to fall in line. From this time to the end, I never again altered my opinions of the ultimate result, but tried to shape my course so as to save our property. When the crash came, Peters wanted to

[Tracy B. Wilson]

save what was his and make money. And to that end he worked with what he called a blockading scheme to work with the Confederate government to help supply cotton, coffee and other supplies. He, along with his partners founded two shipping companies with ships that just ran the Union blockades. And they did well, even though some of their ships were lost. Unsurprisingly, Peters estimated that the venture had made, quote, something like $3 million by the time the war ended. He also noted that the huge shipping venture had meant that his family and those of the other investors in the blockade running business had a lot of supplies that a lot of other people did not. According to Peters, they Shared those supplies with other families who were not as lucky. And mary jane routinely ran supplies to the hospitals.

[Holly Fry]

As general sherman neared atlanta, Richard's family got out on the last train to augusta. Although he initially stayed behind to keep an eye on the railroads. He has some interesting stories about, like, trying to run to various places in the city and being told, like, you gotta get outta here. He did manage to get out of the city as it was captured, and he described this as a narrow escape. That was at the end of 1864. The family remained in augusta until the end of the war. The following spring, when peters returned to atlanta, he looked at all the destruction, and he immediately started planning ways to rebuild. He started working on repairing and rebuilding the georgia railroad first, so that there would be a way to get supplies into the city and a way that benefited him financially as well.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I think that that destruction goes way beyond, like, just the fallout of a conflict if folks are not aware, like, sherman ordered the destruction of anything the confederates could use. So it was like the industrial district had been completely destroyed. The railroad tracks had been torn up. There had been a huge fire that had spread, like, way beyond any of that. So it was immense, an immense amount of destruction. Yeah. In April of 1867, Union General John Pope was made governor of the 3rd Military District. That was one of five regional entities established by the union military to oversee the post war activities in the south. The headquarters for the third, which was tasked with overseeing georgia, florida, and alabama, Was in atlanta. Peter saw this as an opportunity and encouraged other citizens to join him in welcoming the general to atlanta. He was very clearly in favor of reconciliation with the north and with the country's leadership. He understood that just bucking against the north after losing the war Would hurt the city and the state and the whole region. Although, of course, not everybody agreed with him or did that.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, there were apparently some very heated discussions about, what the heck are you doing, dude. This move to welcome the head of the 3rd's Military District not only gave Peters, though, the benefit of pope's favor because he led this delegation to welcome him, it also meant that he was able to influence state matters through that favor. Since 1807, the town of milledgeville had been Georgia's state capital, but when it was time for a state constitutional convention under pope's command, that convention was held in atlanta. This has been described as being a problem of milledgeville innkeepers not allowing black delegates to stay there. It has also been attributed to richard peters and other businessmen in his circle Convincing pope That atlanta was more central, both geographically and as the seat of industry. By the spring of 1868, after city officials had made their case, Atlanta became the new capital of georgia. Peters served briefly on the city council so that he could help guide the city through reconstruction.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

And peters, once again, did not waste any time identifying how he could help the city grow and how he could make money in the process. He started to subdivide the huge tracts of land he had purchased and created neighborhoods and streets. A lot of the streets in the city today, like juniper, myrtle and cypress, Were named by him. These were the names that he gave to streets that ran north and south, More or less. Peachtree road had already been named, and so these tree names were in keeping with that theme, Although he did also include penn avenue as a nod to his home state. The streets that ran east to west were given numbers. Over time, these subdivisions were sold off for huge sums of money, Far more, peters would happily point out, Than what he had paid for that land initially. But some of it he also gave away. He donated several acres for the founding of the new school in 1885 called the Georgia school of technology, which today is better known as georgia tech.

[Holly Fry]

Peters also developed a lot of businesses that have continued to be part of the identity of atlanta right up to the present day. He established a trolley company in the city, the atlanta street railway company. There are some people who will sort of say, like, this is the pre. Pre. Pre. Pre. Precursor to our current mass transit system. That seems like a kind of a long walk to me, but you can make the case that was though the first public transport in the city. He also worked to build a hotel that would be worthy to host any visiting dignitary or government official. He built the first professional baseball field in the city. It had a policy that I think they charged 25 cents for men and women could come in for free. It's really interesting to me when you read this list of things that he built and developed, Both in terms of infrastructure and businesses, that a northerner was so deeply crucial to the rebuilding and economic success of atlanta after the civil war. And all of the things that a lot of people will be like, this is southern culture from philadelphia, my friends.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah, Especially since he was a northerner. He was already there, Rather than someone who, after the fact is like, let me come down there, See what I can do. In 1881, after more than 30 years in the home they had shared from the beginning of their marriage and where they raised their children, Richard and mary jane Moved into a newly built home on Peachtree street between 4th and 5th that's not standing today. It was later torn down.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, I think Atlanta History center is where I saw it. They have a a photograph of it and it's quite beautiful. It's like this beautiful Victorian situation that just looks gorgeous. In his 70s, Richard Peters was still making business deals. A write up in the Atlanta Journal from April 1, 1884 mentions that he sold 198 acres to developer H.I. kimball, noting that that was the largest sale of one body of land ever made in the city.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

On July 26, 1888, 77 year old Peters wrote a will. It's not clear if there was a previous will that this replaced, but it was timely. He died the following year on February 6, 1889, and his will was very brief and very clear. Mary Jane was to get the house and after any debts had been settled, what remained of the nearly one million dollar estate was to be split evenly among his wife and children. He was buried in Oakland Cemetery and you can visit his grave there sometimes he also appears as a character to talk about his life at special events hosted by the Historic Oakland Foundation. I sure did love going to those back when I lived in Atlanta.

[Holly Fry]

Oakland is great. Yeah, Richard Peters. Fascinating dude. So much to talk about on Friday, but right now I'm going to talk about coffee. Okay. Cause I never tire of talking about coffee. This is from our listener Gary, who writes Dear Holly and Tracy, I listened to your Melita episode today while doing yard work. Spring is breaking out here in Oregon this week, although we haven't had much of a winter. Thanks for this episode. I had no idea that Melita products were named after a real person. And while I was sad to hear of the company's ties to the Nazi regime, I also grew up driving Volkswagens and I'm sure using many other products made by companies with complicated histories. Well before the end of the podcast, I was craving a cup of coffee, but that is nothing unusual for me. My mom, born in 1922 to immigrant parents from Norway and Denmark, introduced me to coffee early, at about age 5 as near as I can recall. Me too. I've been a huge coffee fan all my life and always drink it black. I don't do that. I grew up drinking Folgers from an electric Corningware percolator, which I had learned how to operate by the age of 10 or so. I don't remember if it was before or after the percolator, but my mom also used a stovetop Corningware drip a later coffee pot that had a metal compartment for the grounds between the ceramic pot below and a glass globe above into which you'd pour the hot water, which dripped down over the grounds via a small holed sieve. You can find these in a Google image search. I remember those. I used to like watching them do the little prickly perkly Mm I arrived at the University of Oregon just in time for the flowering of what's known as as second wave coffee in the early 1970s, when Eugene was one of the epicenters of west coast coffee culture along with the Bay Area, Portland and Seattle. My favorite hangout was on the second floor of the Smead, an old downtown hotel that had been converted into a bunch of counterculture cafes and businesses. Here you could get pour over coffee made in single cup Melita China cones with fresh ground country origin coffee in white Melita filters. The coffee had exotic names like Mocha Java, Mocha Java, Sumatra and Ethiopia, as well as Colombia, Brazil and some Central American countries. You could also buy your own cones, filters and coffees, whole bean or ground. No more folgers for me. When Third Wave Coffee came along in the 2000s, again centered in the Northwest, I enthusiastically jumped on that bandwagon. I've pretty much made my own coffee a cup at a time with cones and filters since the 70s, although there were a few years when I either lived where fresh beans weren't available or I couldn't afford them. These days I use unbleached filters instead of the white ones. I'm now lucky enough to live in a town where there are several small roasters that sell Fair trade coffee beans from individual farmers throughout the world's coffee growing regions. Over the past decades there have been periods when health issues meant I could only drink decaf and sometimes couldn't drink coffee at all, but those seem to be resolved for the moment, although I do limit myself to one big mug in the morning, so with an occasional decaf in the evening. I have lately been watching a Danish via PBS show called Seaside Hotel and reading the Swedish police procedural books by Henning Mankel and get a huge kick out of how much coffee my fellow Scandinavians drink. Every time someone enters a room they're offered a cup of coffee, which they almost always accept. I get it. Here's for my pet tax Here is Juno, wondering why I'm pulling weeds instead of petting her. Juno looks like a standard poodle or a poodle mix in a puppy clip and is the cutest. I would kiss that snout 37 times a day minimum. I loved all of this coffee talk because for two reasons. One, I just it brings back a lot of good memories. As a kid of the 70s, I just remember watching my parents make coffee in a variety of ways and I love all of it. Two, I influenced myself because after our Melita episode I bought a Melita porcelain drip and then I'm still making my French press in the morning, but I can make a Melita cup fast while I wait for my French press to steam. That's funny because I'm a junkie. I'm telling you, it makes it that much quicker that I have a cup of coffee in my hand and then I'm not like sitting there in the kitchen like white knuckling the countertop watching the French press try to finish its stuff up right because it doesn't care about me or time. No, it's French press Even though it's R2D2. It's really cute. Anyway, I love this. Thank you so much for writing this email. I love talking about coffee. As I said, I'm not a connoisseur, I just love it all. But I understand the move from Folgers to all of the good stuff and I feel like my I lived in the Pacific Northwest when I was a kid, my siblings have lived there and my oldest sister is the one that actually did start when she would come and visit my parents, introducing me to all of the coffee culture that had come from there. And that's really where I became an addict. Do not wish to seek treatment. If you would like to write to us, you can do [e-mail] we also have all of our show notes [e-mail] in case you want to look up any of the sources we have used. If you would like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

7 brought to you in part by Vital Farms. I love eggs. I turn to them all the time as a quick and easy way to start a meal. And Vital Farms eggs are brought to you by hens that have access to fresh air and sunshine and you can actually look up on the carton and see the farm that those eggs came from. Vital Farms is also a certified bee corporation with a purpose to improve the lives of people, animals and the planet through food. Look egg carton in the egg aisle and visit vitalfarms.com to learn more. Vital Farms Good eggs no shortcuts it's

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[Holly Fry]

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