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We Can't Prove Some of it or Disprove Some of it! Just Pratt Stuff The Salvage Company demolishing the old foundry at the gin shop, in 1963 found iron blocks buried under the furnaces. Maybe buried there since the civil war. ?
Pratt built cannons at the Pratt factory during the civil war. There was talk of a Pratt cannon in a park up north. It was marked on the front face of the barrel." Prattville, Ala." Two cannons were said to be at the gin shop and later at a cemetery in Prattville. Pratt did build engines for the iron clad ships near the end of the civil war. The engine was called the Pratt engine in a CSA contract with Penny & Company. ? Gulf Coast Historical Review -Fall 1990 Maxine Turner. Navy Gray: A Story of the Confederate Navy on the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers. Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press, 1988"Despite these failures Columbus and the Chattahoochee Valley rendered a substantial contribution to the Confederate war effort. After the successful Federal onslaught against Confederate ports in the spring of 1862, considerable naval work was performed at Prattville, Selma, and Columbus. Nelson and Asa Tift established an extensive naval supply facility at Albany. The constricted Confederacy especially relied on the engineering capacity of the Columbus Naval Iron Works. With four hundred white workers and many slaves, this yard "supplied machinery for the Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, the Tennessee II, and the two Bigbee Boats at Oven Bluff, Selma, and Mobile; the Savannah at Savannah; the Columbia at Charleston; the Wilmington at Wilmington; and the Jackson at the Columbus facility"
Daniel Pratt met the union soldiers at Breakfast creek with a wagon load of guns. Told them that's all the town had. They then when to their main objective the Selma Arsenal. This would have spared the shop and foundry. Some of Pratt's friends were not so lucky. His ex-partner Samuel Griswold, in Georgia, made a famous gun at his gin shop. The G&G revolver selling now for $20.000 each. Samuel's factory and houses were all destroyed in Sherman's' march to the sea.?
No Daniel Pratt did not invent the first Typewriter. The inventor John Pratt was from Centre, Alabama. The patent was taken out in Manchester, England in 1886 by Pratt who migrated to England and found employment in a piano manufacturing company. Hence piano keys to operate the machine. The invention is exhibited at the Science Museum in London, England. Click to enlarge photo
Henry Debardeleben eloped with Pratt's daughter Ellen. Henry lived at the Pratt house at that time? Henry was Alabama's wealthiest man in 1890, worth 8 million dollars. Second was Col. J.W. Sloss
A man was killed at the shop when he walked out of a building as the steam engine chimney was pulled down. ?
A watchman died at the shop when a hillside overtook the night watch office.?
A report of the "Lady in Red" on the dam many years ago, was true. Many people saw her that windy rainy night standing on the dam with her red gown flowing in the wind. It was Lilly Anderson she came down to the dam that night to help Alton open the flood gates on the dam. People couldn't see Alton but everyone that drove through town saw Lilly. Alton Anderson worked at the shop for 50 years and Lilly was a school teacher, a wonderful couple who loved Prattville and laughed about that night for years. Alton saved the mill whistle when the steam engine was salvaged. It now runs off of compressed air with a timed valve. TRUE Thank You Alton
The Large Deep Pink Crepe Merle to the right front of the Continental Eagle Corporate office is a tree from the old Pratt Home. TRUE Alton Anderson
The Hillside opposite the Continental Eagle office parking lot on Gin Shop Hill Road is still terraced where the 10 acres of Daniel Pratt's grapes were grown. TRUE
Several night watchmen quit after seeing a women dissolve in front of them. Some men worked at Continental for fifty years and never saw anything strange happen?
A moving figure was seen in a shop window for weeks. We later found that someone had spray painted a figure on a window and the passing car lights made it look like it moved. TRUE
The mill pond froze over and was skated on?
Water in downtown Prattville tasted bad for a few days, until someone went on gin shop hill and looked in the open water reservoir to find a cow had fallen over in the water and drown. Alton Anderson
Someone said that they had found a letter when the Pratt house was torn down. The letter was to Daniel Pratt thanking him for bringing kudzu to Alabama. ?
I was told a kid was playing in the old Pratt House in the attic when it was rented as apartments. In the attic were boxes of old uniforms. (Grey & Black)?
The Mill Whistle was blown at the close of World War II for so long the steam boiler ran out of steam. Alton Anderson
More to come later. 05/09/2007
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