History UnderfootAtlanta
  • Ferry
  • Early
  • 1820s
  • City of Atlanta
  • Location approximate

Nelson's Ferry (1820s)

John B. Nelson owned Nelson's Ferry on the Chattahoochee in the 1820s. His house stood a mile north of the mouth of Sandy Creek, where his son Allison, a future Atlanta mayor, was born in March 1822.

See it on the map All Early records

The record

The 1992 GHS marker says Allison Nelson fought in the Mexican War, sat in the Georgia General Assembly (1848-49) and was Atlanta's ninth mayor (1855) before moving to Texas in 1856; he died a Confederate brigadier general in Arkansas in 1862. The marker does not give the ferry's exact crossing. In the 1820s the far bank of the river here was still Cherokee country (see the Chattahoochee boundary item).

Today: Marker site on GA 139 near the river (marker currently removed).