Atkinson-Floyd Papers, 1815-1994

The Atkinsons and Floyds have been prominent families of Camden County on the Georgia coast since about 1800. The Atkinsons also have a Cobb County connection through Alexander Smith Atkinson (1815-1894) and his wife, Mary Ann McDonald Atkinson (1823-1884), daughter of Gov. Charles J. McDonald (1793-1860). After his tenure as governor McDonald moved to Marietta , where he remained until his death. Alexander S. and Mary Ann McDonald Atkinson maintained residences at "Incachee" plantation in Camden County and "Melora" in rural Cobb County, outside Marietta.
Other family connections to Marietta are through the following descendants of Alexander S. and Mary Ann Atkinson:
a) Their daughter Anne Eliza (1843-1919) married Robert de Treville Lawrence of Marietta. The KSU Archives possesses a large collection of Lawrence papers.
b) Their daughter Lilla Caroline (1850-1939) married Col. Thomas Beverley Irwin of Marietta, who was the son of Judge David Irwin, an early settler of Marietta and judge of the Blue Ridge Circuit. Included in Notebook # 1 is a brief autobiographical account by Lilla and Thomas's son, George Beverly Irwin, written in 1969.
c) Their son Samuel Carter Atkinson I (1864-1942) served as an associate justice of the Georgia Supreme Court from 1906-1942. The Georgia Official Register listed him as a resident of Brunswick. The court being in Atlanta, however, the judge actually lived much of the year in Cobb County, according to Sarah Blackwell Gober Temple , "The First Hundred Years: A Short History of Cobb County in Georgia" (Atlanta: Walter W. Brown Publishing Company, 1935), 129.
d) Their son Burwell (1848-1931) became a physician in Camden County. His eldest daughter, Julia Marion (1880­-1971), moved to Marietta after her mother died in 1894, living with her Aunt Anne Eliza Lawrence. Marion graduated from Marietta High School in 1898, then married Dr. Charles Thomas Nolan. Together they operated Nolan’s Sanitarium in Marietta.
e) Burwell's son, John Franklin Atkinson (1882-1949), also moved to Marietta after his mother died. He sang in the choir at St. James Episcopal Church. In 1905 he graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy, then went into the timber business in Camden Co. He married Katherine Russell Foster (1886-1974), a descendant of Gen. John Floyd and Gen. Charles R. Floyd of Camden Co. The children of John Franklin and Katherine Russell Atkinson include Dr. Samuel Carter Atkinson II, who donated these papers to Kennesaw State College.
There is another Marietta connection through William Gibbs McAdoo II (1863-1941), the son-in-law of Woodrow Wilson, Secretary of the Treasury in the Wilson Administration, and later a Senator from California. McAdoo was born in Cobb County on October 31, 1863, although the family was from Clinton, Tennessee, near Knoxville, from which they had fled after the Union occupation of the area. The future senator's father, Dr. William Gibbs McAdoo I (1820-1894) was affiliated for many years with the University of Tennessee. He married Mary Faith Floyd, who was the daughter of General Charles Rinaldo Floyd, the author of the diary contained in Notebook # 2. Mary Faith's first husband was Randolph Gillis McDonald (1826-1854), then in 1857 she married Dr. McAdoo. Sarah Temple cites W. G. McAdoo II's autobiography, "Crowded Years," as the source for her assertion that the McAdoos refuged in Marietta because they liked the climate and because it was the place where they had first met. She says that they purchased "a home, at that time called Melora, on the Powder Springs Road several miles from Marietta and in this house William G.McAdoo was born. [...] The house, though in disrepair, is still standing; it is usually known as the Atkinson place, Col. A.S. Atkinson having owned it for some years. The McAdoo family left Marietta in 1864 when William G. McAdoo was about six months old" (Temple, First Hundred Years, 543-44). Sixty years after Temple published her book, in 1995 the house is still standing but still in disrepair.
Biographical and historical note written by Dr. Thomas Scott.