This historic Queen Anne home (circa 1890-1910) is located near historic Mt. Zion Baptist Church and has been in this condition for quite some time. It appears to be in worse condition than when I first documented it five years ago. It may have a connection to the church. Much of the neighborhood in which it is located was once part of, or adjacent to, the South Albany Historic District, which has been de-listed from the National Register of Historic Places. This was traditionally one of the most historic Black neighborhoods in Albany.
That’s my great-grandpa’s house. He was mixed with black and white and his mom was enslaved. His name was Bartow Powell, born in 1865.
Houses like this were common in rural areas across the southeast. I have seen many of them in small towns across my travels, in GA, FL, SC and NC. The “L-shape” design probably gave them more room to build on small lots.
The front room with the bay window (a nice but probably inexpensive architectural touch) was probably the homeowner’s bedroom. The room behind the front porch was probably the living room.
Note the placement of the chimney in the left-center of the house; it probably had a double-sided fireplace, so it could warm two rooms with only one flue. This was a less-expensive way of providing heat that building two brick chimneys at both ends of the house. Back then, heat was provided by burning wood. Th coming of electrification in the 1930’s was a major step forward in providing a better life, from lighting and heat, to refrigeration and telephone, indoor plumbing and later television.
That front porch would have been a nice place for folks to sit in the evenings, as the sun went down and before the bugs got too bad. That’s what people did, in the days before air conditioning was invented. The light fixture out front probably indicates the neighborhood had electricity by then; but I have been in houses like this that used kerosene lamps for light after dark.
How far we have come, in the last 100 years! We take so much for granted, these days, because it has been too long since we spent time at our grandparents’ houses in the country, where lives were simpler and they often did not have the “modern conveniences” that city-dwellers now have.
Great commentary on this old house and the cultural and social history of its time.