According to the Morgan County Landmarks Society, this humble vernacular home is thought to have originated, circa 1830, as the office of a tannery. It was purchased in 1851 by watchmaker and silversmith Charles William Richter, Sr., (1807-1884) and eventually expanded to its present appearance, a double-pen central hallway form with an incorporated rear shed room. He and his wife, Ann Eliza Potts (1808-1863), both natives of the West Indian island of St. Croix, raised eight children in the house. After Ann’s death in 1863, Charles moved in with his son Martin Luther Richter (1847-1924), a prosperous jeweler and photographer who owned the residence on South Main Street now known as the Dovecote House. Arthur Potter Richter and his family, along with his brother John (1848-1907), lived in the Richter Cottage until at least 1870. Numerous owners and tenants followed before the property was slated for demolition in the 1960s. In 1976, Dr. Josephine Hart Brandon and Carroll Hart, sisters with deep roots in historic Madison, led an effort to restore the Richter Cottage. It was restored in the 1990s as a representative example of 19th century tradesman housing, and is now owned by the Morgan County Landmarks Society.
I was recently invited by Laura Potts-Wirth to photograph an old sharecropper’s house on her property near Glennville.
Though there are no plans to restore the house, it is an important example of vernacular architecture and I’m honored to have been given access.
It is a simple gabled-ell cottage, likely built between the 1910s-1930s.
The owner was Solomon R. Hall, Sr., (1902-1988). He and his wife Mollie Bee E. Hall (1905-1970) raised thirteen children and three grandchildren here, while sharecropping on the Old Anderson Place, to which this property was once attached. Records indicate that ownership passed back and forth between Mr. Hall and the Andersons over the years.
Solomon Hall was also a turpentine laborer and would have known the woods and fields around his home as well as anyone else.
Just across US 301 from the property there was once a community of African-Americans known as Hall Town. The only remaining public landmark of the community is the Old Hall Town Cemetery, which I also documented.
The interior rooms are spare, which was characteristic of this type of housing.
I think it is hard for most people to imagine a dozen or more people living in such spaces, but it was much more common than one might realize.
Gary Mobley, in a March 2020 oral history interview with Laura Potts-Wirth, noted, “Here, Solomon Hall and his wife, Mrs. Bea (sic)…, raised 13 children, and three grandchildren. They did work for part of the harvest. They hunted the land and also got a portion of the hog meat. The small building in the back of their house was either a smokehouse or a summer kitchen. One of the jobs the Sharecroppers had was keeping the farm rows cleared of weeds and clearing volunteer trees for three feet on either side of the fence rows. Up near the pond, there was another sharecropper’s house, where Choice Coley lived...”
Kelly and Fran Folsom spoke very highly of both Solomon Hall and Choice Coley and recalled to Laura Potts-Wirth: “…Mr.Solomon was really responsible for overseeing the farm, especially as Mr. Anderson was getting older, and also when the Dents owned the farm. Solomon Hall really had a lot to do with supervising and managing the farm, overseeing the work being done, and just being a caretaker of the farm.“
The survival of the outbuildings adds importance to the property as a representative example of its type. Even the old privy, re-sided, is a reminder of the times.
Plantings by Mrs. Hall are still blooming, like this hurricane (or spider) lily.
There are clumps of another old favorite, lantana, in several spots around the house.
John Myers recently shared this historic photograph of the old Warwick Consolidated School, also known simply as the Warwick School. It is a modern edit of a photograph he took when he was a boy in the 1970s, and it is great to see it. The school was a consolidation of several smaller area schools and was open from 1923 until its closure in the 1970s. It was demolished some time after that. C. V. Arnold was the architect and W. H. Little was the contractor responsible for its construction. The school’s historic gymnasium, is still standing, as is the lunchroom, which is now home to the local Lion’s Club.
According to the excellent Savannah Agenda, Luis Posada, who owns the Uneeda Biscuit mural at the corner of Price Street and East Perry Street, is hoping to save it with selective restoration. He will appeal to the Historic Sites and Monuments Commission to stabilize it without making it look new. Here’s hoping.
The mural, which adorns the side of a circa 1854 block of row houses, proclaims: “Everybody Knows Uneeda Biscuit”. The other text indicates that they cost 5 cents and were sold “In Packages”, a big improvement over the barrel crackers found in general stores that were apt to quickly go stale.The two faded boxes at bottom right and left displayed the National Biscuit Company logo. They were once red but have now taken a pinkish tone. My best guess for the date of the mural would be circa 1900-1910.
According to the Society for Commercial Archaeology, the National Biscuit Company (now Nabisco) spent $7 million from 1898-1908 to put Uneeda Biscuits on everyone’s mind and these murals became ubiquitous. This was unheard of at the time and was even more wide-ranging than Coca-Cola’s iconic mural campaign. At one point, it’s estimated that 30 million people a day saw one of these murals. Like other icons of their age, they are largely endangered today.
Savannah National Historic Landmark District, National Register of Historic Places
What do we think about progress? Last week, the historic Tattnall Bank, which was Reidsville’s most significant remaining commercial building, was slated for demolition, along with other adjacent storefronts, to make way for the construction of a Circle K convenience store. Local leadership embraced this as progress. This is really sad for Reidsville, which has very few historic commercial structures. The loss of these buildings essentially wipes out the historic downtown, after the razing of a row of buildings down the street about a decade ago.
Michael Williams reached out to me last week to let me know that one of Hazlehurst’s most recognizable landmarks, the home and office of Dr. Samuel L. Martin (1876-1966), was soon to be demolished if no one stepped forward to move it.
As our friend Jesse Bookhardt said back in 2024: “Everybody loves Dr. Martin’s old home, but nobody seems to love it so much that they are willing to save it, so it continues to vanish bit by bit.“
Dr. Martin was a graduate of the Atlanta School of Medicine (now Emory University), who also dabbled in politics. He was a city alderman and mayor of Hazlehurst, in addition to service in both houses of the state legislature. While serving in the senate, he promoted a bill which provided scholarships for medical students who would practice for four years in small towns who were underserved by health care.
Even in its deteriorated state, the house has been a favorite to many who have seen it and photographed it over the years. It has most recently, to my knowledge, been some sort of antique store, but it has been abandoned for quite some time.
The architecture is quite eclectic, especially the asymmetrical front. I think the front and colonnade may be early additions to the house, which was originally built by Charles Felder Chapman (1879-1951) for his wife, Winnie Mae Roberson Chapman (1890-1931).
The carriage house became Dr. Martin’s home office, though he was an old-fashioned country doctor and spent much of his time on the backroads of Jeff Davis County, taking care of rural patients.
It is always sad to share news like this, but I’ve seen so much of it over the years, I can imagine the outcome. The best possible scenario would be for someone to move and save the house, but short of that, it will soon be gone forever.
After the Civil War, the enslaved people of nearby Midway Congregational Church formed their own congregations throughout the county. The African-American community chose names based on the South Carolina locations where they came from, including Dorchester and Beech Hill. At some point, the spelling of Beech Hill was changed to Beach Hill. I haven’t been able to find a date for the organization of this congregation, but it would likely be circa 1865-1870, a common establishment date for the Freedmen churches of the area. In fact, Beach Hill is very close to the historic Freedman Grove community. The present church, originally a wood-framed structure, features the iconic “wedding cake” steeple often found in historic Black churches.
As best I can determine, St. James AME Church is a historic Freedmen’s congregation. While the present-day address is Fleming, it is primarily associated with the nearby Freedman’s Grove community.
Dixon Branch Missionary Baptist church is a historic Black congregation near Rocky Ford, organized by freedmen on 27 June 1871. The name refers to Dixon Branch, a nearby tributary of the Ogeechee River. There were many plantations in this area, and after emancipation, formerly enslaved people who had once been forced to worship with their enslavers desired their own places of worship. They likely met in a brush arbor for their earliest services but eventually built a formal church (circa 1900), which was a typical white clapboard structure, with a “wedding cake” steeple to the left. That structure was replace by the current building, but I haven’t been able to confirm a date.
The small historic cemetery features a variety of memorials, ranging from vernacular to commercial, and many of the early families still have ties to the congregation. The examples presented here are completely random.
F. J. Nelson (birth and death dates unknown)
This simple marker memorializes someone who is now lost to history. I am always hopeful that someone will know these forgotten souls.
Maud Singleton (21 May 1888-March 1897)
This memorial is of a typical vernacular style, featuring stenciled letters with a floral design. Maud Singleton was the young daughter of M. H. and G. A. Singleton.
R. Rease (15 March 1842-22 August 1907)
This commercial monument contains the sentiment: “A kind wife mourns in thee, a husband lost. The poor, a friend who felt, what friendship cost.”
Johnson Bradley (8 February 1868-9 March 1925)
Mr. Bradley, a Prince Hall Mason, was born in South Carolina to Joe and Nancy Bradley. His wife’s name was Lydia. His memorial contains the sentiment “There is rest in heaven”.
Deacon Arthur Oldredge Burke (27 December 1889-22 July 1964)
Deacon Burke was obviously an important member of Dixon Branch Missionary Baptist Church. His memorial may be the nicest in the cemetery. It features a Sacred Heart of Jesus relief, which is most often associated with the Catholic faith, though it has been adopted by Christians of all affiliations.
Rev. James Cail (7 October 1931-30 November 2017) and Ruby Cail (28 July 1933-3 December 2015)
Rev. James and Ruby Cail led Dixon Branch Missionary Baptist Church for many years. A rosary adorns Mrs. Cail’s memorial.
J. F. Fields (1858-1932) was a merchant, who began selling soda water at his popular New York Bargain Store in 1894. By 1900, Field and Dempse Barnes (1875-1912) were in business as the Fields and Barnes Bottling Works, manufacturing numerous brands of soda. In 1901, Fields purchased the Statesboro Bottling Works and Ice Business from B. P. Maul. Dempse Barnes bought Fields’s interest in 1903 and formed the Statesboro Bottling Works. The turn of the century was a time of great growth in the soda water business and in 1906, Dempse Barnes, through acquisitions of competitors and expansions, brought the first Coca-Cola Bottling Works to Statesboro. The structure pictured here was built in 1934 and after operations moved to another facility in 1998, has housed several businesses. It is in serious need of preservation.
