Roswell King

Roswell King (May 3, 1765 – February 15, 1844) was an American businessman, planter, slave owner, and industrialist. Together with his son, Barrington King, he founded Roswell Manufacturing Company in the Georgia Piedmont, establishing a cotton mill and industrial complex. They co-founded the town of Roswell, Georgia, inviting friends to be part of its and the mill's development in the 1830s. Roswell's family originally hailed from Delaware but later moved to Connecticut where they were among the first residents of New Haven and later Windsor. As a teen, Roswell participated in the American Revolutionary War as part of the naval resistance before moving to Georgia's low country. Early life King was born in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1765, the son of Timothy King, a weaver and Revolutionary naval commander, and Sarah (née Fitch) King. At the age of fifteen in 1780, he moved to Darien, Georgia, in the Low Country and started working. His early professional life included jobs as a surveyor in Glynn County and Justice of the Peace in McIntosh County. Plantation manager King eventually became manager of Major Pierce Butler's rice and cotton plantations on Butler and St. Simons islands, Georgia, where he worked until 1820. The plantations covered hundreds of acres on each island. A total of 500 slaves worked and lived on the two plantations. King also owned a plantation and numerous slaves to work it in Darien, where he became a bank manager.