560 ANNUAL IlEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



In the immediate neighborhood of Old Smyrna Church, on the property which 

 once belonged to the Estate of Governor Matthew Talbot, stands an old struc- 

 ture around which centers a world of historic interest. It was erected by the 

 famous inventor, Eli Whitney, in association with his partner for the time being, 

 a man named Durkee; and it was built to house what was probably the first 

 cotton gin erected in the State of Georgia. 



(LuciAN Lamak Knight, 1913.) ** 



It is an interesting fact, that one of the first if not the very first, cotton gins 

 ever operated in Georgia, or in the world, was the one operated by Eli Whitney, 

 the famous inventor, in Wilkea Count}', near Smyrna Church. The original 

 building, though removed a nhort distance from the site upon which it was 

 erected, is still standing on the Burdett place near Smyrna. 



(Otis Ashmorb, 1917.) ** 



A correspondent, signing himself "A Small Planter", writes to John 

 D. Legare, editor of the Southern Agriculturist, on October 22, 1832, 

 as follows: 



♦ * * By the statement of Mr. "S" the first one of Miller & Whitney's was 

 not completed till May 1799, whereas in the year 1797, to my certain knowledge, 

 Mr. Miller had one in full operation on his plantation on Upton's Creek, Wilkes 

 County, Ga. 



I visited Georgia the fore ]^art of the same year (1797) and after riding over 

 several counties, I went to see a gentleman in the upper part of Wilkes, to whom 

 I had letters of introduction * * *. 



Some months after this I wei;t to see Mr. Miller's gin on Upton's Creek (it 

 also went by water) and found, upon examination, that the picking implements 

 were straight wire-teeth drawn hito a wooden cylinder, and afterwards sharpened 

 with a file. They would have answered the puqjose tolerably well could they 

 have been permanently fastened to the cylinder, but the impetus of the opera- 

 tion was too great for the substance they were attached to, which giving away, 

 the teeth would fly out in the midst of the work and occasion considerable trouble 

 and loss of time * * *.** 



If Professor Olmsted's statement is true: "That by 1796 Miller 

 and Whitney had 30 gins in eight diflferent places in the State of 

 Georgia," it would not be surprising for localities other than Wash- 

 ington, in Wilkes County, to make claim as the first place of opera- 

 tion of a Whitney gin. 



Augusta, in Richmond County, is one of these, as the following 

 quotations will indicate: 



During the past winter the writer visited the spot where Whitney made his 

 experiments with his cotton gin. Upon a sluggisli stream that is known as Rocky 

 Creek which flows into the Savannah River a few miles below Augusta, Ga., 

 stands a deserted wooden mill building with its crumbling wooden tub wheel in a 

 decayed wheel pit. Near by is a broken dam and a cane brake which borders 

 upon a swamp where the long flowing moss hangs drooping from the trees. The 

 spot is interesting only as a place where Whitney made experiments and operated 

 his first cotton gin. (M. F. Foster, 1899.) »« 



** Georgia's Land-Marks, Memorials and Legends, vol. 1, p. 1052, 1913. 



•« Georgia Hist. Quart., vol. 1, p. 64, 1917. 



»• Southern Agriculturist, vol. 6, p. 626, 1832. 



»« Trans. New England Cotton Manuf. Assoc., No. 67, p. 152, 1899. 



