Eminent Atlanta Victorians

John Calvin Peck

This is the first in a series of short biographies of Eminent Atlanta Victorians -- not the overdone politicians or Confederate generals but those who made significant, but often forgotten, contributions to the city, state or region in business or the arts.  I will try to link these individuals to specific places, monuments, buildings or grave sites so that those who wish to make a direct connection with the long dead can search out those "artifacts."

      Atlanta burgeoned sleek and fat in the last decades of the nineteenth century.  Charred ruins and streets filled with blackened stones, heaps of rubbish and piles of bones from the trenches and battlefields surrounding the city in 1865 were slowly replaced by paved thoroughfares and grand buildings unimaginable to residents prior to 1870. (1)  One of those many individuals responsible for these astounding changes in the built environment was John Calvin Peck, a Yankee born carpenter/contractor/businessman who made Atlanta his home for five momentous decades in its early history.

     Peck was born in Sharon, Connecticut in 1830 and was educated in the public schools and the nearby Watertown Academy where he reportedly excelled in both the sciences and literature.  Following school, he trained as a carpenter and worked in upstate New York before returning to Connecticut as a carpenter/contractor.  Because of asthma, he eventually moved south in the 1850s, settling in Knoxville, Tennessee and finally taking up permanent residence in Atlanta in 1858.  He worked in his new hometown with the already established antebellum builder/architect, John Boutelle.

     Boutelle was a fellow New Englander [born in Massachusetts in 1814] who had come to Atlanta in 1852 after moving south for health reasons.  Mainly a contractor, he designed many buildings in the antebellum period and even listed himself as an architect in the 1859 Atlanta city directory.  His buildings included the Atlanta Medical College, Collier Building, his own home and those of early Atlanta leaders like Austen Leyden and John Neal.  J. C. Peck and Boutelle had much in common and it was stated in the former's 1908 obituary that Peck "rose rapidly in the gentleman's [Boutelle] esteem, and was soon placed in a responsible, lucrative position." (2)

     Like many northern-born men in nineteenth century Atlanta, the Civil War placed Peck and his growing family [he had married New Yorker Frances Josephine Hoyt in 1853 before moving south] in a tenuous position.  Many of them like engineer and entrepreneur Lemuel P. Grant and architect Calvin Fay became actively and directly involved with the Confederate war effort.  Fay became a captain of artillery and Grant oversaw the construction of Atlanta's defensive works.  Peck's mentor and employer, John Boutelle, also worked on the city's defenses.  At age thirty-one when the war began, Peck avoided active service [perhaps his asthma was a factor?] by working to supply war materials for the military.  Georgia governor Joseph E. Brown commissioned him to make pikes for the state militia and he also attempted to start a business producing rifles, which failed.  "Joe Brown's Pikes" were described as "a sharp, heavy steel blade firmly fixed in a wooden handle, and jumping into place by use of an ingenious spring."  The rifles were made by hand by Peck himself and shot a bullet "one inch in diameter and two and one-quarter inches long."  In addition, Peck also served briefly as superintendent of woodwork at the Atlanta Arsenal.

     As the war dragged on, Peck's health suffered once again due to his asthma and he moved to Thomasville, Georgia.  Somehow he managed to extricate himself from war-torn Georgia by taking his family north to Minnesota where they remained until the end of the war. (3)

     Shortly after the end of hostilities in 1865, John Calvin Peck returned to the burnt out ruins of Atlanta where he established his planing mill on Decatur Street and then N. Loyd (Central), just steps from the train and freight depots in the heart of the city.  By the mid-1870s, the success of J. C. Peck and Co. supplying

Atlanta City Directory 1870

lumber and making sashes, doors and windows was clear.  The owner was listed as one of the city's wealthiest men in 1876 and was a much sought after contractor for many major buildings.  He oversaw the construction of the new state capitol [originally the Kimball Opera House], the massive Kimball House

First Kimball House Hotel

and the buildings at Fort McPherson.  It was reported that the first Kimball House was completed in a record five and one half months and utilized 3,500 workers.  At about the same time, Peck sold his N. Loyd Street property to William Markham and served as the contractor for the huge Markham House Hotel built on the site.  Peck also supplied the woodwork for the new U.S. Custom House and Post Office on Marietta Street in the 1870s.  All of these were the largest building jobs of the decade. (4)

Old State Capitol, Marietta St.

     The solidification of his preeminence as Atlanta's foremost building contractor came in the 1880s.  In 1881, he was a stockholder in the International Cotton Exposition.  Not only was he an investor, but he also served on the Executive Committee as well as Chief of Construction and Superintendent of Construction.

U.S. Customs House, Marietta St.

Markham House Hotel

Peck would later serve in similar positions for the Piedmont Exposition of 1887 and was an organizer of the Atlanta Cotton Factory and Fulton County Spinning Mills.  Finally, he was actively involved in the construction work of the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition. (5)

Main Building, International Cotton Exposition 1881

     Although John Calvin Peck spend his last fifty years in the South and was considered a Pioneer Citizen of Atlanta, he retained at least one very visible part of his New England heritage.  He was a founder of Atlanta's Unitarian Church of Our Father in the 1880s and remained active in this organization until his death, serving as president of the congregation as well as chairman of the board of trustees at various times. (6)  It seems very likely that he supplied the wood and contracting for the 1883 church building which was built near his long time home at 83 Ivy Street [between Wheat and Houston streets]. (7)

Church of Our Father, circa 1884.  Courtesy of the Atlanta History Center Archives.

When John Calvin Peck died, the list of pallbearers and "honorary escorts" read like a Who's Who of prominent Atlantans.  They included M. O. Markham, Frank Rice, George Winship, Joseph Hirsch, Samuel Inman and R. J. Lowery. (8)  Peck was interred in an impressive mausoleum on the north end of the high ridge bisecting the oldest part of Oakland Cemetery.  For any "graveyard tourists" who wish to visit the mausoleum, be sure to note the beautiful stained glass window with the entwined initials of John Calvin Peck.

J. C. Peck Mauseoleum, Oakland Cemetery.  Author's photo.

J. C. Peck initials inside the tomb.  Author's photo.