Q: How did the city of Roswell get its name? Was it named for someone or something?
A: I’ve learned through answering your questions the past few years that many of Georgia cities were named for three things:
- The last name of a local guy of some prominence (Austell, Jonesboro and Norcross, for example)
- The last name of a national hero (Washington, Jefferson)
- A Native American word or phrase (Ellijay, Toccoa, Hiawassee)
Roswell slightly differs because it’s the first name of a gentleman named Roswell King, who traveled from his home in Darien to the area now known as Roswell in the 1830s. Like a lot of prosperous men of his time, he was quite busy. King was a surveyor, a businessman, a plantation manager, planter, and an industrialist, and he was in his 70s when he, and other families began their journey from the coast. They settled in the area just north of the Chattahoochee River and King and his sons established a cotton mill that soon became the biggest in north Georgia, according to The New Georgia Encyclopedia. He died in 1844 and Roswell was named for him when it incorporated in 1854. His family’s legacy lives on in other ways. There’s a monument to Roswell King on the town square and his son Barrington built Barrington Hall, a magnificent Greek Revival home that was constructed on Roswell’s highest hill in 1842.
Q: What can you tell us about the statue in Buckhead that looks like it’s part deer and part man?
A: Don’t be afraid. It doesn’t bite or stalk the streets of Buckhead at night. Officially, it’s called “The Storyteller,” but folks often refer to the creepy bronze creature as “Buck Man,” because that’s what it looks like. There’s a buck’s head, complete with antlers, attached to a man’s body, sitting on what appears to be part of a fallen tree in Charlie Loudermilk Park, where Peachtree and Roswell roads meet. A plaque states that “Buck Man,” which was commissioned in 1998, represents a storyteller, and he’s telling other creatures about the founding of Buckhead in 1838. That must be a tough tale for him to tell, since it involved the killing and beheading of a buck.
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