As their candidate for the first mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, Moses Formwalt was a natural for a local political party that called itself “Free & Rowdy.” A tinsmith who fashioned distilling apparatus and owned a highly successful saloon, he was a leading citizen of the newly incorporated city. Elected in 1848 for a one year term and soon after suffering an untimely death, Formwalt rightly has remained enshrined in Atlanta’s memory.
Format’s origins were hardly propitious. His father, John Formwalt was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1774, two years before the American Revolution, from a family of sturdy Presbyterian stock. By the age of 20 John had married a local girl named Margaret Elizabeth Kerr, age 15, and moved west to Knoxville, Tennessee. Born in 1820 Moses Formwalt was never to know his father. At 46, while Moses was still “in utero,” John died, leaving Margaret with three children. His mother died when Moses was 10, relegating him to be raised by older siblings.
When he reached 16, the young Formwalt struck out on his own. In 1836 he moved to Decatur, Georgia, almost 220 miles directly south of Knoxville. There he appears to have learned and practiced tin and copper smithing with a specialized talent for crafting distillery equipment. By 1846 he had moved to nearby, newly named Atlanta that was growing fast as the terminus point of the Western and Atlantic Railroad. Formwalt found a ready market for his pot stills and in 1847 was able to open a saloon of his own on Decatur Street, perhaps the one shown below. His establishment proved popular with residents and the proprietor rapidly grew in wealth and prominence.
By 1850 the city of 2,500 boasted 40 saloons. Unlike the pre-Civil War “Gone with the Wind” view of Atlanta as one of Southern charm and cultivated manners, the town more resembled the Wild West, as suggested in the contemporary cartoon below. Sections of Atlanta were infamous as hangouts for thieves, gamblers, prostitutes and hoodlums. Shady characters inhabited areas known as Slab Town and Murrell’s Row — the latter named for a notorious gang leader and murderer.
When Atlanta incorporated and set its initial mayoral elections. two political parties emerged although voting was non-partisan. One was the “Free and Rowdy” Party. The adherents, called Rowdies included the owners of Atlanta’s proliferating distilleries, saloons, and brothels who represented a major voting bloc. They favored keeping Atlanta a “wide open” town. The opposition called itself the “Moral Party.” It ran on a law and order platform aimed at eliminating vice and curbing liquor sales. For the initial mayoral election the Free and Rowdies chose the popular and prosperous Moses Formwalt; the Moralists picked Jonathan Norcross, a New Englander who owned a sawmill.
The 1847 election was fiercely contested although only 215 votes were cast—women and people of color not allowed. Artist Wilbur Kurtz painted the scene at one polling place, Thomas Kile’s Grocery, where activity is depicted as brisk. Sixty election-related fist fights are said to have occurred during the day. When the votes were counted, Formwalt had won the one year term as Atlanta’s first mayor.
The “whiskey man’s” term in office was well documented in a record kept by James E. Williams, a subsequent mayor. Formwalt’s term was marked by modest progress. A board of health was chosen, new streets were opened, and a bridge across a stream on Hunter Street was widened and raised. On a curious note, in April 1848 Norcross and another man were charged with disorderly conduct of an unspecified nature at a city meeting. The other man was fined $10; the charges against Norcross were dropped.
The Formwalt’s office apparently included some judicial powers. According to a May 1906 article in the Atlanta Constitution, the city’s first police officer, German Lester, shown here in a newspaper photo, was: “A good marshal, brave man, faithfully performed his duties as circumstances would permit. Often he would arrest violators of the law and carry them before the mayor, who would discharge them, when really they should have been heavily punished.”
Two years before his election the 28-year-old Formwalt had married. His bride was Elizabeth Ann Bell, 17, born in nearby Elbert County, Georgia. No record exist of her reaction to becoming the “first lady” of Atlanta as a teenager. Elizabeth may have had religious or other objections to her husband running a saloon because after his year as “hizzoner,” Formwalt abruptly changed occupations and became a Dekalb County deputy sheriff.
It turned out to be a fatal decision. On May 1, 1852, Formwalt was escorting a prisoner to the courthouse from the county jail when the man pulled a knife from
under his jacket and fatally stabbed the former mayor, killing him. In addition to being Atlanta’s first mayor, Moses now became the first Dekalb County deputy sheriff killed in the line of duty. His death helped to spark a citizen push for greater law and order in Atlanta. After two other Free and Rowdy mayors, Jonathan Norcross was elected on the Moral Party ticket and promptly cracked down hard on Atlanta’s disorderly residents, changing the character of the city virtually overnight.
Even in death, Formwalt continued to hold public attention. Following a well attended funeral, he was interred in a burial plot he owned in Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery. Several years later, however, his widow Elizabeth, by now remarried,
sold the plot to another local family. Although a downtown street was named in Formwalt’s honor, the prospect was that Atlanta’s first mayor would lie ignominiously amidst strangers.
A protest arose among the populace. A committee was appointed to find a more suitable resting place. After considerable delay a site was found that later was discovered to lay within a section of the cemetery reserved for pauper graves. Again public protest erupted. Not until 1916, 64 years after his death, was Foremost awarded a suitable burial site. His body was disinterred and moved.
Atlanta’s first mayor now lies in a place of honor in Oakland Cemetery, a prominent location marked by a striking granite monument. It contains a plaque that reads: “Erected by the City of Atlanta to the memory of Atlanta’s first mayor, Moses W. Formwalt, 1848.” Nearby is a fountain featuring two children under an umbrella. They seem to be looking toward Formwalt’s grave. For me it is a sad reminder that this distillery craftsman and saloonkeeper did not live long enough to father a family of his own.
Notes: Although information on Moses Formwalt is not easily accessible, sufficient material exists online to craft the story of how this “whiskey man” rose to become Atlanta’s first mayor and about his unfortunate death. Details about Formwalt, his father and wife may be found on ancestry.com.
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