Jonathan Norcross (1808 - 1898) was the fourth mayor of Atlanta. Born the son of a clergyman in Orono, Maine, he was in Georgia by 1836 and arrived in Marthasville August, 1844 setting himself up as a successful dry goods merchant, sawmill operator and became a prominent citizen. His sawmill mainly produced crossties and string timbers for the construction of the Georgia Railroad. He invented a vertical saw with a circular wheel 40 feet in diameter which was adjusted in an almost horizontal position and could saw 1,000 feet of lumber a day. In 1847 he led the first effort to have the Georgia state capital moved there from Milledgeville (which finally did occur in 1868). Two years later, he co-founded the Daily Intelligencer.

He won the election of 1850 as a candidate for the Moral Party against the surprisingly qualified candidate from the "Free and Rowdy Party", attorney Leonard C. Simpson. He presided over a town split between law-and-order and the almost war-like Rowdies; a town with 40 drinking establishments and a thriving red light district. He made life unconfortable enough that most of the Rowdies moved a mile south-west to Snake Nation or to Slabtown.

Starting in 1856 he was the first president of the Georgia Air Line Railway which was to run through the Carolinas and Virginia facilitating traffic from New York to New Orleans. He failed to get funds from the Georgia General Assembly largely because of intense lobbying from competing Georgia Railroad and Central of Georgia Railway. After Norcross got a bond commitment from the city of Atlanta, Lemuel P. Grant joined the list of adversaries supporting a different route (Georgia Western Railway) and by 1860 both of those rail ventures were dead.

Norcross was in his 50s during the American Civil War and notable only for being on the committee of citizens (with William Markham) that surrendered the city to Union General Henry Slocum.

As the Republican nominee for Governor of Georgia in 1876, he was soundly defeated by Democrat Alfred H. Colquitt. He died at the age of 90, the last surviving ante-bellum mayor of Atlanta

The town of Norcross, Georgia (now a suburban Atlanta city) was named in his honor.

Jonathan Norcross | Mayors of Atlanta | 1808 births | 1898 deaths | Jonathan Norcross

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