By Ann Taylor Boutwell
Sept. 6, 1862: Mary Jane Thompson Peters buried her son Joseph, 1, in Atlanta’s city cemetery, later called Oakland. Her continuous lifetime commitments until death in 1911 were family, church, and community. In 1845, Mary Jane, age 15, met Richard Peters, age 35, a boarder at Thompson’s Atlanta Hotel. Her father’s friend was then superintendent of the Georgia Railroad. They married in 1848 on a rainy February, Friday in Decatur. During the Civil War from1861-1865, The Southern Confederacy listed “Mrs. R. Peters” often, mentioning her connection with St. Phillips Hospital and the local Ladies Soldiers Relief Society. On June 25, 1865, she said goodbye to a second son, baby Stephen, also buried at Oakland. Two weeks later, as Federal troops neared Atlanta, the family escaped to Augusta. Stories of cemetery vandalism in Atlanta worried Mary Jane, so in mid-December she and two friends took the arduous 148-mile return trip back to Atlanta, which included walking 16 miles. In Atlanta, she found her sons’ graves untouched and her damaged home still standing. In 1881, the Peters built a beautiful home at 642 Peachtree Street on the north side of town. Mary Jane suggested appropriate street names, which surrounded their property, later called Peters Park. Those streets are still known as Cypress, Juniper, Myrtle, Cherry and Plum, today. One of her last gifts to Atlanta was the beautiful lot on the corner of North Avenue and West Peachtree where the All Saints Episcopal Church still stands. Shortly before her death on June 8, 1911, she wrote: “As I look around me now in this crowded city, which I have watched grow up to its present size with interest and delight, it is sad to feel that I am almost alone of the original number who came here in 1845.”
Sept. 10, 1895: Ogdensburg New York Journal reported 205 Chinese passengers stopped in their city on their way to Atlanta and the Cotton States Exposition. They came from Hong Kong by steamer to Vancouver and across British America by the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The troupe of 135 men, 36 boys, and 34 women were admitted under a joint resolution of Congress for the purpose of establishing a Chinese Village on the Midway at the exposition, September through December 1895. On Sept. 14, the troupe arrived in special cars aboard the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. Their journey from Hong Kong had taken 35 days by land and sea.
Sept. 22, 1877: The 19th United States President Rutherford B. Hayes arrived in Atlanta on a good-will mission attempting to mend North-South relations after Reconstruction. Hayes stayed at the Markham Hotel on Loyd Street, now Central Avenue.
New History Revealed
Downtown Atlanta celebrated the completion of two projects over the summer: restoration of the sculptures in Margaret Mitchell Square and the unveiling of the new ATL Playground in Woodruff Park. Renowned New York artist Kit-Yin Snyder created the 1986 sculpture with anti-bellum columns references honoring Margaret Mitchell author of Gone With the Wind on the plaza at the intersection of Carnegie Way, Peachtree and Forsyth streets in front of the Atlanta Library. Jeff Santos of British Columbia designed the playgroun in Woodruff Park on Peachtree Street. Landscape Structures created the innovative play areas.
