The Evans County Courthouse was built in 1923 at a cost of $60,000, replacing temporary offices in the White Building. It was one of several in the area designed by prolific courthouse architect J. J. Baldwin.
National Register of Historic Places
I photographed this house in 2013. It was unusual because it was architectural in style. The two side-by-side front doors are a common feature of double shotgun houses. I presume it was a tenant house. I attempted to relocate it in 2022, but it was gone.
Note: This updates and replaces a post originally published as “Pyramidal Roof Tenant House, Evans County”, on 22 February 2013.
The cemetery associated with historic Eureka Church is the last remaining public landmark of The Level, a Black community near Hagan. The church collapsed circa 2018. A nice collection of vernacular memorials set Eureka Cemetery apart as a historic resource for Evans County. I am sharing random shots, including commercial markers, but focusing on the vernacular pieces.
I believe the name was misspelled on this memorial, as there are others buried here whose name is Collins.
Like many in this Freedmen’s congregation, Leasan Ray was likely born enslaved.
The fallen marker notes that Mary Wright was aged 59 years at the time of her death.
This is one of the earlier commercially made memorials in the cemetery, featuring a dove.
This marker has no information, but was likely meant for a family.
The only information, other than the decedent’s name, notes that she was Bob Small’s sister.
Venus Bacon’s marker is an early commercial form with stenciled lettering.
The hearts were a nice addition on this handmade memorial.
Mr. Wright was a Private, 52 Co, 157 Depot Brigade, World War I.
I have tried to interpret the words on this memorial to no avail.
The red star likely denotes a Masonic affiliation.
All the Jones family memorials have a similar shape and were likely the work of the same maker. This small stone has faded badly.
I will try to add birth and death dates if I am able to interpret them. I believe they all may be children.
Like the memorial for Jim Jones, Mary Jones’s features the name in cursive.
The memorial for D. V. Richardson is perhaps the most notable work in the cemetery. It features hand lettering and an unusual symbol, seen in detail above. It appears to have something to do with carpentry or, perhaps, Masonry.
These tin-sided warehouses dominate the downtown area of Bellville and are remnants of the railroad era. The mural was added sometime after I first photographed the buildings in 2009.
Note: This replaces a post originally posted on 5 November 2009.
This house appears to have been abandoned for a long time, but remains in good condition.
In Houses of Heart Pine: A Survey of the Antebellum Architecture of Evans County, Georgia (3rd printing, 2014), Pharris DeLoach Johnson notes that this house*, one of the oldest in the county, originated circa 1856 as a single pen log structure joined by full-dovetail notches. It was later expanded to the Plantation Plain style it now exhibits (probably within a decade of its original construction) and weatherboards were added. The house was lowered slightly during a later renovation which was necessitated by replacement of the original chimneys. The roof and windows were also replaced but the original log walls and interior architectural features remain strongly intact.
James Bell Smith (1823-1891), whose mother Fannie Bell was the namesake of Bellville, purchased this property from Benjamin Brewton in 1851. His family came to Georgia from North Carolina after the Revolutionary War, settling in the 1820s in the section of Tattnall County that later became Evans County. Upon his death in 1891, the house was inherited by his son, Pulaski Sikes Smith. When Sikes died in 1894, his widow Mary Eliza Tippins Smith continued to reside in the house. Later, Sikes’s daughter Helen Daniel acquired the undivided land holdings of her siblings, including the house. Helen sold the house and surrounding land to her son Walter Emmett Daniel in 1954, and they own the property to this day. It is presently used as a guest house.
*-also known as the Smith-Daniel House
The gables feature an interesting shake/shingle pattern.
I think this was a originally a double-pen cottage, changed in appearance by the addition of a preacher’s room.
Intact historic farms survive only through the care of generations of families; the Mitchell J. Green plantation in Evans County is an excellent example. In 1868, after service in the Confederacy, Mr. Green built a log cabin on the property and commenced farming. The thriving operation became the center of a small community known as Green and had its own post office from 1882-1904. Mr. Green served as postmaster. A Plantation Plain farmhouse with Victorian accents, built in 1878, anchors the property. Numerous dependencies remain.
Commissaries are iconic components of Georgia’s plantations and many remained in use on larger farms until World War II. The Green Commissary appears to be in excellent condition; the shed protrusion is likely a later addition.
The stock/hay barn is the largest outbuilding on the property.
National Register of Historic Places
This home was built by Gilliard Roberts, an early African-American entrepreneur who had businesses in Savannah and Claxton. It was later owned by Walter & Mattie Scott, Julius Caesar Banks, and served as a boarding house and apartment house for teachers.