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  (Historic Downtown Senoia)

Senoia is a small city about an hour south-west of Atlanta, Georgia. The first establishment in the area was a post office depot built in 1854 in what was known as the town of Willow Dell. As more and more people began to move to the area—drawn in by the two, intersecting railroads that ran through the town—the town was renamed Senoia. The origin of the name and reason for the name change is still unknown, but four, main theories prevail. The first is that Senoia comes from the Creek Indian woman, Senoya He-ne-ha, who was the wife of Captain William McIntosh and whose son would later go on to be a chief of the Wind Clan of the Creek Indians. The second comes from an edition of the now nonexistent Senoia paper called the Enterprise Gazette which alleged that “John Williams suggested the name Senoia for an Indian chief of that name, a medicine man and philanthropist, noble, brave, and generous.” The third theory comes by way of another newspaper account from 1873 which purported that Colonel William C. Barnes devised the name to honor an Indian man who once resided in the community. The fourth and final theory says that Senoia was named after a Native American word given as a title to Chief William McIntosh, son of Senoya He-ne-ha. In any case, Senoia was incorporated as a city on December twelfth in the year 1866 (History of Senoia).

After the post office depot, the first building constructed in Senoia was known as Rock House. It was intended to be a mercantile but was soon repurposed as a commissary for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. A high school was erected in 1865 to educate the community’s children. Post Civil War, Senoia began to boom even more. The Savannah, Griffin, and North Alabama railways now meandered through the town taking with them Senoia grown peaches and cotton that would then be sold across the country. Today, the National Register of Historic Places recognizes the historic district within Senoia on its registrar. This district houses many buildings that date back to the turn of the century, along with a few that were built all the way back in the 1850s (History of Senoia).

While the history of Senoia is rich, it also displays the troubling American tendencies to glorify the treatment of the Native Americans, culturally appropriate their words and traditions, and never speak about the true atrocities that they through at the hands of white settlers. However, I wanted to give some background about the place that I have lived since I was two years old before I talked about the areas within that city that I believe to be so analogous to places in The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. To me, Senoia is a place set out of time, much like Maggie’s hometown is to her.

Within Senoia, there is a dirt road far away from any heavily populated areas (I have to drive thirty minutes to the nearest grocery store, which is more amusing than frustrating if I am being honest). My house sits on this road and I take walks along it every day. There are two areas in particular that I wish to touch on. The first is a copse of loblolly pines that filter the sunlight and beautifully frame the road. The second, in more broad terms, is the town itself.

While reading The Mill on the Floss, I was struck by how romantic and melancholic the scenes that take place within The Red Deeps are. The Scotch firs create a portal into a different realm for Maggie Tulliver, a place where she can be true about her feelings for Phillip, a place where she can be true about her feelings regarding the world. It may be that I take everything that I read far too personally, but I cannot help imagining myself in every scene within the pages of a book. Therefore, reading the descriptions of the Red Deeps made me feel as though I was there. I could smell the evergreen scent and see the craggy path. Eliot’s writing lends the place a mystical, storybook quality that I strongly related the copse of trees near my house to. She writes, “in her childish days Maggie held this place, called the Red Deeps, in very great awe, and needed all her confidence in Tom’s bravery to reconcile her to an excursion thither,—visions of robbers and fierce animals haunting every hollow. But now it had the charm for her which any broken ground, any mimic rock and ravine, have for the eyes that rest habitually on the level; especially in summer, when she could sit on a grassy hollow under the shadow of a branching ash, stooping aslant from the steep above her, and listen to the hum of insects, like tiniest bells on the garment of Silence, or see the sunlight piercing the distant boughs, as if to chase and drive home the truant heavenly blue of the wild hyacinths” (Eliot 310). Later on, Eliot goes on to say, “with her dark colouring and jet crown surmounting her tall figure, she seems to have a sort of kinship with the grand Scotch firs, at which she is looking up as if she loved them well. Yet one has a sense of uneasiness in looking at her,—a sense of opposing elements, of which a fierce collision is imminent; surely there is a hushed expression, such as one often sees in older faces under borderless caps, out of keeping with the resistant youth, which one expects to flash out in a sudden, passionate glance, that will dissipate all the quietude, like a damp fire leaping out again when all seemed safe” (Eliot 311). While reading, I pictured Maggie as a medieval warrior akin to Boudicca except Maggie is one whose battles rage on inside rather than with-out. Eliot writes about nature in a reverential way that speaks to its ability to be a safe harbor while also making it known that it is a place of unknown dangers. Walking my dog every morning, I can almost see Maggie and Phillip among the filigree shadows cast on the ground by the pine needles.

The second area that I wished to speak about it the town itself. Because both Senoia and St. Oggs are so small, they do have that certain insular nature found only in places where people have lived together for many, many years. Families have known each other for generations and there is turmoil that can arise from these close relations. Because I grew up in this analogous area, I can see how the plot of The Mill on the Floss could easily happen in real life. Living in an echo-chamber is only bad when you start questioning things and having your own opinions. 

Works Cited:

Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. Penguin Books, 1860.

History of Senoia. Senoia.com. Retrieved 21 November 2020, from https://www.senoia.com/community/page/history-senoia-georgia.