Caroline Loud
The mother of Philologus H. Loud and her relationship to Roswell King
by William W. Waldrop
Caroline Loud, whose maiden name was Caroline Amelia Cooke, could count among her own family and relatives some of Georgia’s most well known citizens. Her father, William Cooke, came to this country from England and lived for a time in Darien, where he was a merchant. Also living nearby were two men who would one day become relatives of his; Roswell King and Lt. Col. Josiah Barrington. An early settler of Georgia, Barrington was also a cousin of James Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony. He and his wife, Sarah, had two daughters; Elizabeth and Catherine. William Cooke would contract to marry Elizabeth on November 17, 1791 and Roswell King would marry Catherine on April 14, 1792. This union of the Cooke family with the Barrington and King families must have been beneficial to all three families and may have ultimately been what led Caroline’s husband, John Loud, to one day prospect for gold in the early 1830’s.
Caroline’s uncle, Roswell King, was a very capable, industrious and successful businessman. As a young man, he had left his home town in Windsor, Connecticut and moved to Georgia looking for new opportunities. He would find them in Darien as he pursued numerous ventures and civic duties for the town and county. In time, he not only had his own plantation to run, he managed the large holdings of Major Pierce Butler on and around nearby St. Simons Island. With the 1828 discovery of gold in north Georgia as well as earlier strikes in the Carolina’s, the Bank of Darien chose Roswell King to visit these gold fields and report back to them on his findings as they had invested in many of these gold mines. He travelled extensively in those states where his keen eyewitness observations and report would be greatly appreciated by the Bank of Darien. Always looking for new opportunities, Roswell King would soon leave Darien along with his family and start all over again in a promising area that he had seen while on his tour for the Bank of Darien. Eventually, he would build a cotton factory there and a new community was born. It bears his name to this day, Roswell, Georgia.
To date, no documentation has been found verifying that John Loud learned of the gold being found in north Georgia from his wife’s uncle, Roswell King. However, human nature being what it is...he may very well have.
Posted 27 March 2012