The Enigma of Gus Coggins
by Bruce Baker
Of all the residents of Cherokee County over the years, the hardest to understand must be Augustus Lee Coggins. His life’s story has more twists than a suspense novel, and his character is more mysterious than half of the suspects in a murder mystery. It’s not possible to do him justice in one article, as his is not a short story, but some effort must be made. Born in 1868 to parents that owned a gold mine and a livery stable, his family was prominent socially. By age 25 he’d been elected as sheriff, and he later assumed the operation of the livery. Handsome, and an “up and comer,” only months after becoming sheriff he married Daisy Ryman of Nashville, the daughter of a sea captain who owned a steamboat line on the Cumberland River. Daisy’s sister Pearl would also marry Gus’ brother Rol; Daisy’s father Thomas is the same Thomas Ryman that built the Ryman Auditorium, which was originally a church but is more famous for housing the Grand Old Opry for many, many years.
Gus was a character. He owned a pet monkey, and a pet bear. To entertain guests, he assembled an eleven-man (all Black) brass band. That’s not to say he wasn’t a serious farmer; in addition to raising animals, the farmstead had a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, and a smokehouse.
For the next twenty years, Gus would expand his livery business, buying and selling mules and horses, and traveling as far away as Missouri to acquire stock. It’s possible that he bought mules from my own great grandfather, George Thomas Crump, who operated a large mule breeding operation In Schuyler County, Missouri which sold mules to the circus, to farmers, and to the US Army. Gus employed Rol to manage the business. Around this time he leased a 350-acre farm from Major Wallace Campbell, which he ultimately purchased in 1903. Naming it Crescent Farm after the winding shape the Etowah River took around the property, it sits directly across the river from the Canton Cotton Mill and included the land where Cherokee High School sits today.
Image: Gus Coggins with horse at Crescent Farm (date unknown)
The farm primarily bred mules and horses, with the latter being used for harness racing, but the farm also had turkeys, cattle, guineas, hogs, sheep, and peacocks. Crops ranging from corn to cotton to sugarcane to make molasses were also grown, along with a lot of hay to feed his animals. A farm this large required a lot of labor, and he was known to have as many as 75 Black laborers, many of which were housed in tenant houses on the farm. African American labor was less expensive, and it’s unclear whether his hiring practices were primarily motivated by cost savings.
What is clear was that many white laborers greatly resented it, seeing it as a loss of employment for themselves and their families. Vigilante groups called “night riders” threatened white businessmen who hired Black workers, going so far as to ride on horseback at night setting fire to local shops and farms that wouldn’t comply with their demands. The persecution of Black people was most severe in Forsyth County, but it occurred in Cherokee County as well; Census records indicate that the county lost 23% of its Black population between 1910 and 1920.
In 1900, one of Gus’ barns burned under mysterious circumstances, killing cattle, a valuable racehorse, and a loss of some harvested crops. It’s believed that prompted him to consider a “fire-safe” structure to house the most valuable of his livestock, what we today call “The Rock Barn.” Built in 1906 with rocks quarried from the Etowah riverbank, the corbie-stepped roof façade is unique, as is the lack of cornerstones for the external walls because of the irregular rubble masonry. The Rock Barn is recognized for the treasure that it is, earning its place on the National Register of Historic Places.
Image: Rock Barn at Crescent Farm (date unknown)
At some point Daisy and the children moved back to Nashville and her parent’s mansion. The children visited him at Christmas and during the summer, but Daisy stayed away. Not until her mother died in 1926 did she move back to Canton, and take up residence with her estranged husband, Gus. Speculation is rife, but it’s unclear exactly why she left, and why she returned.
By the early 1920’s, things were not going well. During World War I American farmers prospered by supplying Europe with food and livestock; when it ended and European farms recovered, however, American farmers found themselves with excess goods, resulting in lower prices, and agriculture in general went into a depression. Many farmers lost their farms to banks, and banks in turn found themselves with loans that would never be repaid, a foreshadowing of the Great Depression to come in the next decade. Specific to Crescent Farm, the emergence of the automobile and farm tractors caused a steep decline in the need for horses and mules. Another barn burned during this time, and some have speculated that this time it was not the night riders, but possibly set by Coggins himself for insurance money as he had found himself stuck with a large excess of horses and mules.
By 1924, Coggins also needed cash to shore up his Bank from failing. In 1926, over 150 banks in the states of Florida and Georgia failed, and while Gus was raising cash by selling farmland, buildings, and even an ice plant, it wasn’t going to be enough. On November 6th he skipped town along with $62,000 he’d gotten from an Atlanta bank. Four days later he cleared his debt to the Harper Mule Company in Illinois with a $25,000 check: the very same day the federal court ordered an involuntary order for bankruptcy on the Bank of Cherokee, depriving many in the community of their life’s savings. In 1927 bankruptcy proceedings would see the Jones Mercantile Company acquiring Crescent Farm. Coggins would head west, spending time in Montana, and Texas, before settling in Wray, Colorado. He doesn’t appear in either the 1930 or 1940 census, fueling speculation that he changed his name to avoid creditors.
Image: Bankruptcy records - list of creditors, 1928, Augustus L. Coggins
There is much about Gus that we’ll never know. Rumors of gambling issues around his harness racing participation exist; just how much of his financial ruin was at the hands of the night riders, how much came from the agricultural depression at the end of World War I, and how much was his own doing? Was his employment of Black laborers a reflection of his respect for them, or an exploitation of them? Did his wife leave out of fear for her children because of the threats he received, or were there marital problems left unspoken? And what of the 25 years living out west, likely under an assumed name; what did he do after leaving Canton with a fair amount of other people’s money? In the end, was Gus Coggins a hero, or a villain?
It's just possible that he was both, or neither. In the words of Peter Tomasi: “There are no heroes, and there are no villains. There are just opposing points of view. That’s all history is—the viciously long battle between world views.”
Sources:
Wheeler, Kenneth H. and Cowart, Jennifer Lee 2013 Who Was the Real Gus Coggins?: Social Struggle and Criminal Mystery in Cherokee County, 1912–1927. The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Winter, 2013), pp. 411-446. Savannah, Georgia: Georgia Historical Society.
Stone Barns of Eastern America by Robert Kroeger (unpublished)