Spoke 'n Wheel Newsletter, July 21, 2010

John Adams introduced the speaker, Dr Richard Sams.

The speaker was Dr. Richard Sams who works as a geologist at Petróleos de Venezuela. Dr Sams primary occupation has been as an international consultant in petroleum exploration. Dr Sams has published many technical articles on geology. He is the author of Atlanta Is Ours: The Plot to Capture Sherman, his first historical novel.

Dr Sams was born in Atlanta and graduated from Druid Hills High School and was reared in the house he currently occupies. He graduated from Baylor School and attended Emory, UCLA, and got his PhD at The University Of Texas.

Dr Sams spoke about how Decatur was once located in the ocean and was in the middle of two continents that came together when North America came together with Africa, Asia and Australia to create the Appalachian Mountains.

The continents came together right along the Chattahoochee River and formed Stone Mountain. He also told us about "Soapstone Ridge" and mentioned that when all of the soapstone was naturally moved down to the South Georgia plain, and washed from the Piedmont area, left a lot of natural trails. Clairmont road was one trail that led to Soapstone Ridge. Another trail went to and from Stone Mountain.

Dr Sams also told us that in 3000-1500 BC the trade routes first became established. In 900 AD, a new group of people came to and people started to occupy these areas. We called these people Indians. The Indians would hold their council at Stone Mountain.

Following the Indians, Dr Sams' explained how Macintosh started the creation of counties in the state of Georgia with Major John Ridge, David Vann and Joseph Vann. They all helped to negotiate what we refer to as "DeKalb County". They created the earliest other counties, which were Dooley, Houston, Monroe, Fayette and Henry County. Henry County was later broken up into three counties; DeKalb was formed from Henry County.

An early settler in DeKalb County was Chapman Powell, whose "Medicine House" cabin was built near 1218 Clairmont Rd. It has since been preserved and relocated to Stone Mountain Park. Major Powell saw that trains were coming and argued in the state legislature and said the terminus of all of these railroads should end up in what we now refer to as "Atlanta", while a man named John Calhoun said that the terminus would be nothing more than an eating place.

One fact that was mentioned to us was the popular street called "Sams Crossing" (near Avondale Estates) is named after his family.

The book "Atlanta is Ours: The Plot To Capture Sherman", written by our speaker, Dr Richard Sams, was donated to the DeKalb County Library.

The meeting was then adjourned.

Reported by Elliott Augustine