Samuel Griswold, who came from Connecticut and settled in Clinton in 1820, established the first iron foundry in Georgia. He also manufactured about 1,000 cotton gins a year and operated a steam sawmill and grist mill. In 1849 he moved to Griswoldville to be on the railroad, and during the Civil War his mansion and factories were burned by Sherman in 1864 while he was making pistols and ammunition for the Confederacy. He died in 1867. Daniel Pratt of Temple, N.H., later designer of the Alabama capitol, was at one time Griswold's partner.