Samuel Griswold (December 27, 1790 in

Burlington, Connecticut Burlington is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. Situated at the foot of the Berkshires and bordering the Farmington River, it is a scenic hill town, rural in nature, located west of Hartford. Incorporated in 1806, the popu ...

– September 14, 1867 in Clinton, Georgia) was an American industrial pioneer in the 1820s based in central

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. He was the founder of Griswoldville village, an industrial site. His father was Jeremiah Griswold (1745–1813) and his mother was Phoebe Case (1751–1798).

Early life

Samuel Griswold was born on December 27, 1790, in

, a member of the prominent Connecticut Griswold family. He moved to Clinton, Georgia, near present-day Gray, with his parents in 1818.

Career

In Georgia, he created a successful

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...

factory, in 1830, that quickly became the largest producer of cotton gins in the nation. One of his colleagues was Daniel Pratt, who later moved to

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

and became an important industrial figure and the founder of Prattville, Alabama. Griswold's village, Griswoldville, was an industrial site/

company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...

with a cotton gin plant,

soap Soap is a salt (chemistry), salt of a fatty acid (sometimes other carboxylic acids) used for cleaning and lubricating products as well as other applications. In a domestic setting, soaps, specifically "toilet soaps", are surfactants usually u ...

and

tallow Tallow is a rendered form of beef or mutton suet, primarily made up of triglycerides. In industry, tallow is not strictly defined as beef or mutton suet. In this context, tallow is animal fat that conforms to certain technical criteria, inc ...

factory,

candle A candle is an ignitable candle wick, wick embedded in wax, or another flammable solid substance such as tallow, that provides light, and in some cases, a Aroma compound, fragrance. A candle can also provide heat or a method of keeping time. ...

factory,

saw A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, Wire saw, wire, or Chainsaw, chain with a hard toothed edge used to cut through material. Various terms are used to describe toothed and abrasive saws. Saws began as serrated materials, and when man ...

and

grist mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

and

non-denominational church Non-denominational Christianity (or nondenominational Christianity) consists of churches, and individual Christians, which typically distance themselves from the confessionalism or creedalism of other Christian communities by not formally align ...

. At the outbreak of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, the Griswold cotton gin factory was leased to the Confederate government and retooled to make pistols and

munitions Ammunition, also known as ammo, is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. The term includes both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines), and the component parts of ...

at the behest of Georgia governor Joseph E. Brown. Griswoldville also served as a mustering site for Confederate and state troops. The

revolver A revolver is a repeating handgun with at least one barrel and a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold six cartridges before needing to be reloaded, ...

produced at Griswoldville was called the Griswold and Grier Revolver, and later on called the Griswold Gunnison, after Arvin Nye Gunnison, Griswold's business partner. The Griswold Gunnison revolvers are reduced sized copies of the Colt Dragoon, round barrel not octagonal (but in .36 cal not .44) and were made with distinctive

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

frames because of the shortage of

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

in the South. Also typical of the Griswold is a cylinder manufactured from twisted iron instead of steel. However, Griswoldville was destroyed on November 20, 1864, by Captain Frederick S. Ladd and his men of the

9th Michigan Volunteer Cavalry Regiment The 9th Michigan Cavalry Regiment was a cavalry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. History The Ninth Cavalry began its organization in the fall of 1862, at Coldwater, under the direction of Colonel James L. Davi ...

. The Battle of Griswoldville was the first battle of Sherman's March to the Sea. After the Civil War, he sold a portion of his property and retired.

Death

He died in September 1867.

In popular culture

Cullen Bohannon, the

Confederate Army The Confederate States Army (CSA), also called the Confederate army or the Southern army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fi ...

veteran and protagonist of AMC's '' Hell on Wheels'', carries a Griswold revolver. That fact is established in the pilot episode and is a plot point in multiple episodes (e.g., season 3, episode 6), in which the distinctive gun is used, shown, or mentioned.

References

* Bragg, William H., Griswoldville * Williams, Carolyn, ''History of Jones County Georgia: For One Hundred Years'', Specifically 1807–1907

External links

*
Samuel Griswold

Griswoldville
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Griswold, Samuel 1790 births 1867 deaths American Civil War industrialists People of Georgia (U.S. state) in the American Civil War People from Burlington, Connecticut People from Gray, Georgia Businesspeople from Connecticut Businesspeople from Georgia (U.S. state) American city founders Griswold family