Mary Ann "Polly" (Smith) Sumner


Mary Ann "Polly" (Smith) Sumner, and her daughter Margaret (Sumner) Wood, along with Margaret's daughters, Lucinda Elizabeth "Lizzie" (Wood) Shelly; Easter (Wood) Merritt; Mary Ann "Molley" (Wood) Tarrant, were among a company of women and children arrested for treason by William T. Sherman in July 1864. They were working at the textile mills in Roswell, Georgia.

Mary Ann "Polly" (Smith) Sumner and her daughter, Margaret (Sumner) Wood, both died while enroute to Kentucky in July 1864.


Lucinda Elizabeth "Lizzie" Wood married James Williamson Shelly in Louisville, Kentucky. She died in Atlanta, Georgia March 10, 1920.

Easter Wood married _____ Merritt.



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Mary Ann “Polly“ Smith (Sumner), daughter of John Buckner Smith, wife of Benjamin Sumner

In 1864 Mary Ann "Polly" Smith was living in Roswell, Ga. married to Benjamin Sumner. She was arrested along with 400 other women and children by Union General Garrard on the orders of Gen William Tecumseh Sherman.

During the attack on Atlanta, Gen. Garrard was sent to find a crossing over the Chattahoochee River. Garrard's cavalry arrived in Roswell in July 1864 and stumbled upon the three textile mills in full production. General Sherman ordered everyone connected with the mills to be arrested and charged with treason.

Theophile Roche, the mill manager, and a French citizen had been employed by the cotton mills and later the woolen mill. In an attempt to save the mills from the torch he flew a French flag in hopes of claiming neutrality.

For two days the mills were spared until it was discovered that the claim of being neutral was false. The letters "CSA" (Confederate States of America) were found on cloth being produced. The mills were burned by Union forces on July 7, 1864.

The mills were burned by Union forces on July 7, 1864. The mill workers, mostly women, and children since the men were away fighting the war were arrested, charged with treason, held overnight, under guard, in the Town Square until they could be sent by wagons to Marietta and transported by train to the north to uncertain fates.
Some were sent to Indiana, some to Illinois and some were put on a boat and sent toward Louisville, Kentucky.

Mary Ann “Polly” was old, feeble and confined to a rocking chair and while they were carrying her off the boat she was dropped and evidently died from her injuries.

Her daughter, Margaret Dorothy (Sumner) Wood, was also arrested and she died on the boat as they approached Louisville. Both were buried in unknown locations in Louisville, Kentucky.

Those arrested were never tried for the crime for which they were accused, and many never returned. One of the women involved in this tragedy was pregnant and working as a seamstress at the mill. She was sent north to Chicago and left to fend for herself. It would take five years before she and her daughter would return, on foot, to Roswell, only to find that her husband had remarried because he thought she was dead.

Only the 1853 mill was rebuilt after the war and used until destroyed by fire again in 1926. The original covered bridge was also built in 1857 by the Roswell Manufacturing Company. It was burned twice, once by each side during the war and finally rebuilt after the war.

Today, a monument honoring the 400 lost mill workers keeps their memory alive in Old Mill Park on Sloan Street in Roswell, Georgia.





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