| Notes |
- Biographical Data for Alfred Austell
The National cyclopaedia of American biography: being the history ..., Volume 1 By James Terry White"
Alfred Austell, born in 1814, in South Carolina and who married Jane Wilkins of Spartanburg, S.C. It states that Alfred was the son of William Austell (born in 1777) & Amelia (Millie). This William Austell is said to be the son of an English Naval Sea Captain who came to America early in the 18th century, and who was descended from William de Austell, Sheriff of Cornwall under Edward III and the builder of the ancestral castle now in ruins in the town of St. Austell, Cornwall, England.
(The facts of the above account are confused. William Austell, Sr. was married to Amelia, their son, William, Jr., was the husband of Jane Wilkins and the father of Alfred Austell, see article below)
Alfred Austell was a well-known financier of Georgia and a successful businessman. After the Civil War he was called "General" but was destroyed financially. He rebuilt his fortune, organized banks and railroads, and was a partner in a very successful cotton dealing firm.
--From Research Notes by Juanita Austill Allen
Alfred Austell
No people in all history ever faced overwhelming disaster with higher courage than did the people of the Southern States at the close of the Civil war. Their property was swept away, their country was desolate, capital was non-existant, political conditions were chaotic, a hostile party was in control of the government and the future was as black as all these dark clouds could make it. The vast majority of the people naturally struggled with desperation because the necessities of the case forced them to do it, but here and there was found a clearheaded man who, with a profound insight into condition foresaw that better days must come and planned accordingly. Among these far-sighter men was General Alfred Austell, of Atlanta. He, in the sixteen years succeeding the Civil War was the foremost citizen of Atlanta. General Austell was born near Dandridge, Jefferson County, in East Tennessee, on the 14th day of January, 1814. His father, William Austell, was a substantial farmer, highly respected in his community, and who gave to his children a good example as a citizen. His mother, Jane Wilkins, was an excellent Christian woman, who contributed much to the formation of his character. The Austell family is of English descent. On the paternal side they trace back to William de Austell, who in the reign of Edward III was Governor and Sheriff of Cornwall and built the ancestral castle that can today be seen in ruins in the town of St. Austell, in Cornwall England. On the maternal side the family is also English and goes back to Fulk, Count of Anjou, who first adopted the planta genesta as his emblem in the Crusades. He was the progenitor of the Plantagenet family, who ruled England for generations. General Austell's mother was born in Culpepper County, Virginia. When she was a child, her parents moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina, and here William Austell met and married her.
General Austell grew up in one of the most picturesque sections of our country and retained, all during his life, that love of the mountains which seems to be innate in all people born in the mountainous sections of our country. His early educational advantages were limited, but he grew into a man of fine physique and most impressive manners. At the age of seventeen, spurred on by feelings of ambition, he left the farm and rode across the mountains to Spartanburg, South Carolina, where an older brother, William W., was engaged in business. The lad found his brother's affairs much involved, owing to a heavy decline in cotton, with which he was loaded up. With an indebtedness of twenty thousand dollars it looked like bankruptcy, but even then the financial ability which was so largely displayed in later life was developing and, after three years of labor, the business was cleared. The winter of 1835 was spent in New York, where he contemplated locating, but in 1836, being then twenty-two years old, he, with his brother, removed to Campbellton, Georgia, and engaged, in the mercantile business. Soon after their arrival, William died, leaving an invalid wife and three small daughters as a charge upon the younger brother, a duty which was faithfully charged.
In a short time Mr. Austell was the leading merchant and planter of his section and had more capital than was needed in the conduct of his mercantile business. This he invested in lands and negroes, and in a few years was one of the extensive planters of the section. In 1853 he married Miss Francina Cameron, of La Grange, an accomplished lady from one of the cultured towns of Georgia, who yet survives.
In those days there was a militia organization in the State and there were periodical musters. General Austell, a man of fine presence and a leader in the community, promptly became an officer in the militia and was promoted from one rank to another until he became a Brigadier-General in the Georgia State Militia. After more than twenty years in Campbellton, with his usual business acumen, he saw that Atlanta was the coming city of the State. He had already made considerable investments in the town, and in 1858 he closed out his business in Campbellton and moved to Atlanta, where he promptly became a leader
General Austell was strongly opposed to secession. He was a pronounced Union man and believed that peaceful methods were far more to be desired than hostilities and that there was no serious menace to the interests of the South in the election of Lincoln, so long as the South contended for its rights under the Constitution. His frequent business visits to New York and the East had shown him what tremendous resources that section possessed and how heavily handicapped the Southern States would be in a struggle against what would practically be the combined world. When the die was cast and hostilities began he, of course, cast his lot with his people. Being then a man well along in middle life, he did not take active part in the war, but rendered valuable services to the Confederacy along financial and commercial lines. During the battles around Atlanta he was temporarily in active service as a member of the Home Guards under Colonel Z. A. Rice. From the wreck of the war he saved something, but at the close of the Civil War, being then past fifty years old, he went to work with his usual industry and forsight to rebuild his shattered fortunes. He had organized, prior to the war, the Bank of Fulton. This, of course went down in the struggle. Laws had been passed protecting these broken banks in the South from having to redeem their notes, but Mr. Holland, the president, and General Austell, vice-president of the Bank of Fulton, bought all of its bills, paying for them in gold, and then gathering them in a pile made a bonfire of them. It was said that this was the only bank in the South which redeemed those bills, and no stronger testimony of the integrity of General Austell could be given than the statement of this fact.
He was an intimate personal friend of President Johnson, and the President called him to Washington and strongly urged him to accept the position of Provisional Governor of Georgia. General Austell declined the honor, knowing that his position would not be understood by his people should he accept a place from a Republican administration. Being desirous of serving his people, he asked as a personal favor that the President appoint John Erskine to the Federal Judgeship in Georgia. This request was promptly granted, and thus be secured for the people of his State in this important position a man of integrity and ability and who was able to render the people splended service in a most trying time. In September, 1865, General Austell organized the first National Bank ever organized in the Southern States - the Atlanta National Bank - now in its forty-sixth year, which has stood unshaken through every financial convulsion, and today, with its nine million dollars of resources, is a monument to the man who founded it and who for sixteen years stood at the helm. It went through the panic if 1873 without a tremor, and in that terrible year, General Austell was the only man in the State able to command money to move the cotton crop, his Eastern correspondents having telegraphed him that they would send him one hundred thousand dollars a day until the crisis was over. In the meantime, he had founded in New York the cotton firm of Austell and Inman, which afterwards developed into the great cotton house of Inman, Swann and Company, which for nearly a generation was one of the foremost cotton houses of the world.
The banking and the cotton business having had due attention, General Austell concentrated a large share of his energies upon the building up of the railroad interests. It was clear to a man of his business sagacity that the South must have more railroads and that Atlanta, in order to work out its destiny, must be put in a better position as to transportation facilities. With Colonel Buford, of Richmond as president, and himself as vice-president, they built the Atlanta and Charlotte Air Line, thus forming a direct connection with Washington. Remembering the beauties of the mountain section which he had traversed as a lad from Jefferson County, Tennessee, to Spartanburg; in the early seventies, with W. H. Inman, of New York, and R. Y. McAden, of Charlotte, he purchased the Spartanburn Union Railroad, and extended it to Asheville, making the connection with the Air Line, and making the first railroad connection between the beautiful country now known as the "Land of the Sky" and the outside world. He became an active director and large stockholder in the Georgia Pacific, running from Birmingham to Atlanta, and in the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia, running from Atlanta to Rome. The small station eighteen miles from Atlanta, which in the junction of these two lines, was named in his honor, Austell, and is now a prosperous town. General Austell had given his entire time and energies to the building up of the material interests of the country and had steadily refrained from political action as far as any personal advancement was concerned, but when, in 1878, the Democratic Convention met in Atlanta to nominate a candidate for governor, friends of General Alfred H. Colquitt and Honorable Thomas M. Norwood, ex-United States Senator, became involved in a heated contest over the nomination, a compromise committee was appointed to agree upon a man, and this committee almost at once agreed upon General Austell as the best possible candidate, and with Colonel William Saffold, of Columbus, as chairman, called upon him and tendered him the nomination. After carefully considering the matter for twenty-four hours, General Austell felt compelled to decline. This decision was due this sense of responsibility to the people who had trusted the management of such large business interests to him, as he feared that his withdrawal would result in their injury.
From the close of the Civil War until his death, General Austell was the foremost financier of Atlanta. The morning after his demise, which occurred suddenly from a paralytic stroke, December 7, 1881, Henry W. Grady, in The Atlanta Constitution, said of him in part: "Wise, prudent, and sagacious, he carried the enterprises of which he was the head through storm and sunshine, amassing fortunes for those who were connected with him, standing as a bulwark of Atlanta finances. Better than all this, General Austell died in the fulness of integrity, without a blot on his career, leaving to his children the legacy of an honest and stainless name."
Men who knew General Austell intimately said he was an almost infallible judge of character. In innumerable cases, he loaned money to men who were just starting, or who were involved, frequently without security, and in this way was instrumental in building up many of the large private fortunes of some of Atlanta's best citizens, and it is said that very rarely did he make a loss, so keen was his insight into the characters of the men with whom he dealt. His personal integrity has been already illustrated in the story of the redemption of the bills in the Fulton Bank. This was carried into every transaction of his life.
He was a faithful member of the First Presbyterian Church; always liberal in his contributions to that institution and to every church in the city of Atlanta of every creed and color. One of the most beautiful tributes paid him after his death was a mass meeting of the negroes in Big Bethel Church, where resolutions of sympathy and regret were passed, and he was truly mourned as one of the black man's wisest counselors and most generous helpers.
He left four children: William W. and Alfred, Jr., the sons are both highly educated, talented men - William W. the builder of the first modern office building in Atlanta, and the organizer of the first refrigerating car service in the South. Of his two daughters, Janie married James Swann, of Inman, Swann and Company, who was the able successor of General Austell as president of the Atlanta National Bank, and who has himself since passed away; Leila married A. E. Thornton, a distinguished business man and prominent manufacturer, his specialty being the cotton oil business - who after a most successful business career died in 1907. Such in briefest outline is the life record of one of the men who contributed much to the rebuilding of Georgia and of Atlanta after property values had been swept away by the destruction of War.
The ancestrial lines of General Austell present some features of strong interest. The name is a very rare one, and the founder of the family in our country appears to have been William Austell, a member of a Cornish family of England - a Captain in the Royal Navy who, moved by a spirit of adventure and a love of the wilderness, settled in the wilds of Western North Carolina and took up lands in the Big Yadkin district during the eighteenth century. His sons, Joseph, Amos, William, and Samuel, inheriting the father's pioneer spirit, pressed on in the wilderness, going into Western North Carolina and East Tennessee., and their descendants were found in the van of those adventurous spirits who conquered the great Southwestern territory. The sons of Joseph went as far west as Arkansas and Texas, Stephen Austell making a name for himself in the "Lone Star State." Amos moved to Middle Tennessee, William moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina, and later to East Tennessee. Samuel, after becoming a famous Indian fighter in Alabama, migrated to South America. In Spartanburg, William Austell met and married Jane Wilkins, whose parents, William Wilkins amd Elizabeth Terrell, had moved with their family from Culpepper, Virginia. Elizabeth Terrell was a reigning belle and a woman of rare beauty. There were objections to the marriage by the ambitious parents, whose preference was for a richer suitor - and the young couple took the matter in their own hands and eloped. They crossed the mountains into the new State of Franklin, which afterwards became Tennessee, and settled near the present site of Dandridge, Jefferson County, and there Alfred Austell was born, January 14, 1814. His mother was a woman of strong Christian character; and although struggling with the adverse conditions of pioneer life, her strong family pride planted in her children the story of their rich inheritance. Her father was a descendant of Captain Richard Wilkins, of the Royal Navy, a Welshman by birth, who became engaged in the West India trade, and whose sons, Andrew and John, settled in Virginia, where John patented thirteen hundred acres of land in the upper part of Norfolk County on the second creek of Nansemond River. (The article contains more information on the ancestry of the Terrell Family which I have omitted here.)
Quote of an article by Bernard Suttler in the book "Men of Mark"
Census Data for 1840
* Alfred Austell, 73rd Enum. Dist., Campbell County, GA, page 34
Census Data for 1850
* Alfred Austell, 10th Enum.Dist., Campbell County, GA, page 454
Census Data for 1860
* A. Austell, 5th Ward, Atlanta, Fulton County, GA, page 835
The Cobb County, Georgia, city of Austell (just west of Atlanta) was named for General Alfred Austell.
Read an interesting article about Alfred Austell Cunningham a military aviation pioneer who is a possible descendant of General Alfred Austell.
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