The Asa Chandler House is one of the most historically important and endangered houses in Elberton, and an unusual resource to be so intact within an urban setting.

Though tax digests and historic resource surveys date the house to circa 1849, it likely originated earlier as a simpler form, perhaps a dogtrot, and possibly as early as the 1820s or 1830s.

Asa Chandler (1806-1874) bought the 36-acre property in 1849. He was a preacher and yeoman farmer who may have owned several slaves. After the Civil War, Rev. Chandler continued to operate the farm while serving numerous congregations in northeast Georgia. He was known to have a peach orchard at one time. Southern Anthology, a genealogical compendium of “families on the frontier of the Old South” notes: “Rev. Asa Chandler was born on the 22d of August, 1808, in Franklin County, Georgia. He made a public profession of faith in Christ in his 14th year, and joined the Poplar Spring church, in his native county. He was ordained in his 21st year, and in 1834 accepted the pastorate of the Van’s Creek church, in Elbert county, and moved to Ruckersville. He served that church as pastor for the long period of thirty-seven years, and was its pastor when he died. Other churches also enjoyed the benefit of his ministerial services, especially the Falling Creek church, of which he was pastor for more than twenty years.“

In 1917, the home was purchased by postmaster and mail carrier Walter C. Jones, who added the garage and other modern barns to the property. Mr. Jones was also a small-scale farmer, who may have planted the pecan orchard behind the house.

The property is amazingly intact but its location on the main north-south highway in Elberton makes it vulnerable to development.

It’s important for its antebellum origins, but also for its transition into a modern farm.

I don’t know its present status but I hope it will be preserved.

National Register of Historic Places