Reverend John Archibald McMannen

An entrepreneur and Methodist lay preacher, John Archibald McMannen (1812-1875) established the South Lowell community on the Little River in the 1840s. Using profits from a religious engraving, he manufactured smut machines mechanical devices for separating healthy from diseased grains of wheat.

The business thrived, allowing McMannen to buy a gristmill as well, and he chose the name South Lowell expecting his thriving village to emulate the industrial success of Lowell, Massachusetts. Boys and girls academies were established there, and McMannen served as the local parson.

In 1855, McMannen made a down payment on most of Bartlett Durhams land south of the railroad at Durhams Station, and advertised lots as Proposals for Building a Town. He sold none, possibly due to a clause excluding sale of ardent spirits, and all persons of questionable character.

Financially overextended, McMannen went bankrupt but friends protected some of his property such that the street running to the family home was named McMannen. (It later became South Mangum Street.) Eventually, McMannen moved his smut manufacturing to Durhams Station, and went on to become one of Durhams first tax assessors after the towns incorporation in 1869.

In the 1870s, McMannen and some other Methodists withdrew from the Trinity congregation and established their own; that group later became McMannens Chapel, now McMannen United Methodist Church, with its place of worship on Neal Road.

Streets
Mangum Street