Butler Island Plantation, Real Photo Postcard, 1935. Collection of Brian Brown.
After many years of decline, the historic lands and waterways of Butler Island, just south of Darien, were purchased and modernized by Col. Tillinghast L’Hommedieu (T. L.) Huston, in 1926. A dairy was part of the Butler Island Plantation enterprise before it was converted to an iceberg lettuce farm, and some of the dairy structures were maintained throughout Huston’s ownership. This barn and other related buildings have been gone for decades, but may have still been in use when R. J. Reynolds purchased the property after Huston’s death in 1938.
This real photo postcard, dated Tues. Apr. 16, 1935 wasn’t mailed, but features a somewhat exaggerated, tongue-in-cheek message on the reverse: “Near border of Georgia & Florida. Air fresh & fragrant with blossoms. Cattle have free range in this state & receive excellent attention, as card shows. Autos barely escape colliding with hogs, cows, chickens, dogs, turtles, etc. on the highways.” It isn’t signed.
Walter “WM” Smith started this seafood processing business in 1955. Though it wouldn’t take the name Smith & Sons Seafood until the late 1970s, everyone in McIntosh County knew the business. It has evolved from a bait shrimp business, to brokerage, to processing and packing, and a little bit of everything else. WM’s son John, who now runs the business says: “To this day, everywhere I go, my daddy’s friends will tell me stories about him like when he was drafted right out of high school to play baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He chose not to do it. He chose to stay with his family. He chose to stay in the shrimp business.” It has all paid off, as Smith & Sons are now the largest processors of domestic shrimp on the East Coast.
I’m a huge fan of Wild Georgia Shrimp and McIntosh County is the heart of this vanishing way of life. It’s great to know that businesses like Smith & Sons are doing all they can to promote and distribute this coastal delicacy.
I generally don’t cover new buildings, but this one is an exception because it’s a tribute to the Adam Strain Building. I can’t find anything online that indicates this, but if you know the Strain Building, you know this is built to look like it. It’s sided with the modern faux tabby prevalent on the coast these days and is located in the parking lot beside the abandoned Darien Outlet Mall just off Interstate 95.
When I heard in 2018 that the Adam Strain Building was slated for likely demolition, I felt anger, impending loss, and a sense of betrayal that a building with so many historical connections dating back at least 200 years could simply be allowed to go out like that. Despite being burned during the Civil War, it survived to become an unofficial symbol of Darien.
I was very aware of its endangered state, from photographs I made as early as 2009, a year after the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation brought attention to it by naming it a Place in Peril. And Darien friends who reached out over the years were cautiously optimistic, but mostly fearful, for what its future held.
I got an exciting message from one of those friends, Kit Stebbins Sutherland, in 2020. She was still cautiously optimistic, but said that the impossible had happened and the Adam Strain Building was going to be saved. Kit grew up in Darien with a mother who spent years creating an amazing photographic archive of its historic buildings and coastal landmarks, so her interest in her hometown is palpable. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Fast forward to the present and the restoration is in full swing. Milan and Marion Savic of Marietta are the new owners of the Adam Strain Building and the circa 1898 Bank of Darien [pink building to immediate left of Strain Building] and are doing everything right. They’ve emphasized the benefits of keeping everything as original as possible, especially protecting the tabby siding which is one of the distinct aspects of the Strain’s construction. It’s in the good hands of Ethos Preservation, Landmark Preservation, and Lominack Coleman Smith Architects. They’re doing the serious work of putting everything back into place and insuring the building is around for another 200 years. I hope to get more detailed photos in the near future, and will share them here.
West Darien Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Rena P. Wilson (16 July 1869-17 August 1934). The text* on the stone is difficult to read, which isn’t an insult to the maker, but rather an indictment on the state of education available to black Georgians in the Jim Crow era. *Bon July 161869 -Di.d. Au 17 1934-Age 65 3-Mont 1 Day- At rest
The challenges facing African-Americans in tracing their ancestry have been widely publicized in recent years and among them is the absence of marked graves in cemeteries dating from the days of slavery well into the Jim Crow era. Groups like the Black Cemetery Network are working against time to research and document these important resources.
Dunwoody Cemetery, in a patch of palmetto and oak beside Interstate 95 near Darien, is a perfect example of such a place. The beautiful vernacular headstone of Rena P. Wilson, who was born just after slavery’s end, is the only memorial I could locate here. Most of the earlier markers were made of wood and are long lost to the elements.
The land where Dunwoody is located was originally part of a grant from King George II to Sir Patrick Houston dating to 1757. When the land was purchased by James Smith upon Houston’s death in 1798, it was named Sidon and became part of Smith’s network of profitable rice operations along Cathead Creek. A tabby plantation house, slave dwellings, and this slave cemetery made up the main part of the plantation, which was operated by Smith’s daughter, Elizabeth Dunwoody. All traces of the plantation are now gone, except this cemetery.
Grace Baptist Church is an important vernacular Gothic Revival church and has been a landmark of Darien’s Gullah-Geechee community since its construction circa 1910-1915. Though segregated, the community was well-established in Darien and several architecturally significant historic churches from the first generations after Emancipation can still be found throughout the historic district, including First African Baptist, St. Cyprian’s, and St. John Baptist. A petition to to save the church can be accessed and signed here. According to Missy Brandt Wilson, notable names associated with the church include the Bleach and Stewart families, who found their way back to relatives in Darien after being sold during the Weeping Time, and W. H. Rogers, the only African-American member of the Georgia General Assembly in 1907.
In recent years, it was home to Emmanuel House of Prayer in Historic Grace, but the congregation has apparently been inactive for a long time. A tree fall impacted the rear section of the building a few years ago and lack of repair has led to encroachment of wildlife and vegetation. The collapsed section of roof is evident and has begun “pushing out” the left side of the cruciform. As a result, the city of Darien has designated the property dangerous and unfit, and will likely condemn it in the near future. Their concern is understandable, but hopefully, they will work with advocates who want to see it saved.
The stained glass windows are thought to have been placed during the 1930s.
They are perhaps the most endearing feature of the design.
Though they look damaged, most are in good condition. The blur effect is from plastic placed on the windows to protect from moisture. Note the collapsing roof at the right in this photo.
I think the loss of this resource would be a tragedy, not just for its aesthetic value but for its historic connections.
Since I don’t know what is being planned, I can only hope that signing a petition will help in a small way. Saving the church should at least be something the city will consider. It’s definitely worth saving.
Vernon Square-Columbus Square Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This gable-front bungalow was built by Theodor “Teddy” Atkinson (1923-2016) in 1947. It’s typical of a style very common locally in the first half of the 20th century. If you like vernacular architecture, Darien has some nice examples in its historic district.
With plantings of emblematic Southern shrubs such as camellia and azalea, cabbage palms and canna lilies, I would say this yard is of a Southern style once nearly ubiquitous but not much encountered anymore. The burning barrel was ever-present in yards of another time, as well, and many still use them. But it made me think of the old days.
If you drive through Darien you won’t be able to miss this big old wooden boat sitting in the middle of town. It’s permanently “docked” beside the old McIntosh County Jail, which serves today as the arts center. After years away from Georgia, it was at the end of its service and was soon to be scrapped. Friends of the Kit Jones, in collaboration with local government and encouraged by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, wanted to save it and return it to Georgia, and that’s just what they did. The following history is abridged from their website which is really worth a read. The level of research they’ve done is impressive.
The Kit Jones was built to order for R. J. Reynolds, Jr., of pine and live oak milled on Sapelo Island, which Reynolds owned at the time. Blueprints for the vessel were drawn by prominent naval architects Sparkman & Stephens of New York and construction was overseen between 1938-1939 by Axel Sparre, a Danish shipwright who was living in nearby Brunswick. Gullah-Geechee residents of Sapelo provided much of the labor.
She is 60 feet long, 17 feet wide, 18 feet tall, and weighs 60,000 pounds. Her namesake is Katharine Talbott Jones (Kit), wife of Sea Island developer Alfred W. Jones. They traveled in the same circles as Reynolds and Jones had spent time on Sapelo with then-owner Howard Coffin the the 1920s.
The Kit Jones has served as a tugboat, a ferry for the people of Sapelo, a freight hauler, and, a fire boat during World War II.
She began an association as a research vessel with the University of Georgia marine sciences program in 1953 that ended with her acquisition by the University of Mississippi in 1985. She served for many more years and was capsized by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She came back for a few more years but was finally retired in 2013.
Restoration work was done from 2019-2023 and everything looks ship shape. Ultimately, this is an amazing “save” and my hats are off to this community and especially the Friends of the Kit Jones.
This photo was made circa 2011. The shrimp boats are still the biggest attraction for visitors to Darien. The Gale family has been involved in shrimping these waters for generations.
Arguably Darien’s most beautiful church, St. Cyprian’s can trace its origins to the years of devastation following the Civil War. Reverend Dr. James Wentworth Leigh arrived in the area from Great Britain in 1873 and initiated a project to provide a church for the freedmen of Darien. Donations came from Europe, Philadelphia, and elsewhere to assist the fledgling congregation in their quest to build a suitable home. They named their church St. Cyprian’s for the martyred African Bishop. Using the construction techniques they knew best, the men of St. Cyprian’s built the church using tabby and brick. It is one of the most significant tabby structures still in use.
Darien Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
