This Queen Anne cottage is one of the finest works of residential architecture in Glennville, located right in the heart of downtown. The Hughes family was prolific in the area, but I haven’t located much about the Coates family. Cemetery records indicated Charles Marion Coates (1882-1935) and Eula DeLoach Coates (1887-1951) lived in Glennville around the time this house was built.
I made this photograph in 2015, not long before this house was torn down or moved. Though it was sided with asbestos, I believe it was an older house. It was located near the intersection of Milefield Road and US Highway 301, at the site of the new roundabout. I had a snapshot photo of better quality but have been unable to locate it, so please overlook the grainy quality of this one. I mainly wanted to share it in hopes that someone might be able to help with an identification.
There are houses that look nearly identical to this one in almost every town in Georgia. I identify it as Eclectic, because it is a marriage of two styles. At its core, it’s a Queen Anne cottage, but at some time the owners created a more Neoclassical look. In the early 1900s, the Victorian aesthetic was becoming passé and the cleaner lines of Revivalist architecture were being embraced. Tax records date this house to 1910, but my guess is that it was built at least 10-20 years earlier, and 1910 reflects the date it took on its present appearance. Whatever its precise history, it’s a great old house.
I made this photograph in 2010 and these chairs, which sat outside the Laundry Room in Glennville, were a bit of a landmark in my travels. Though they’re gone now, they would have been the height of modernity when originally placed here. Modular chairs such as these have become icons of Mid-Century Modern design and similar versions are still sold today. While it may seem strange that businesses as unassuming as laundromats embraced this innovation, their durability and practicality made them quiet sensible for places that received a lot of random traffic.
I’ve admired this simple house for years, always concerned that its days were numbered. I made this photograph a few years ago, and probably have a better shot somewhere in my archive, but I think this one will do for now. I was surprised I’d never published it here before, but I couldn’t find it on the website. It’s not an exaggeration to say that houses of this style (technically, form) provided shelter to the masses before modern techniques and materials were widely available. In a way, they were the “cookie-cutter” types of their day, but I’m guessing this house is at least 80 or 90 years old and can’t imagine today’s prefab versions lasting nearly as long.
In October I visited Sweet Georgia Fuyu in Glennville. This may be Georgia’s largest commercial persimmon operation and if not, it certainly looked like it. All that bright orange is an amazing sight.
The weekend before, I was at the Forsyth Farmer’s Market in Savannah and bought some persimmon-ginger jam from owner Laura Potts-Wirht, who invited me to come and photograph the orchards.
I had met Laura a few years earlier at a locavore potluck at Janisse Ray and Raven Waters’s Red Earth Farm and she was very enthusiastic about the persimmons.
Presently, there are 20 acres of persimmons with ten more acres being developed. Fuyu Persimmons are a bit firmer and definitely sweeter than the old varities we’re used to in Georgia.
While I’m not personally a fan of the raw fruit, I always loved my grandmother’s persimmon cakes and breads made from the fruit of an old tree at the farm.
I enjoyed talking to the two men who were on-site, grading and preparing the persimmons for shipment. They noted that the harvest was nearly over but that they had been busy throughout the season.
If you’re ever near Glennville, check out the orchards in the early fall. I believe they ship, too.
One of Tattnall County’s most important landmarks, the Knight-Dubberly House is an excellent example of the Plantation Plain style. Built by the Reverend Seth Knight (1795-1853) in what was then the village of Philadelphia, it is the oldest house in Glennville and among the oldest in Tattnall County. Reverend Knight served as Treasurer of Tattnall County and a justice of the inferior court. His plantation, anchored by this house, covered over 700 acres and Sea Island cotton and rice were its two chief crops.
It is unclear when William Dubberly (1827-1895) purchased the house but it was around the time of the Civil War. The war actually came to the doorstep of the Knight-Dubberly House. According to Dylan Edward Mulligan: On 14 December 1864, a band of Sherman’s army under Colonel Smith D. Atkins forced their way across the Canoochee River at Taylor’s Creek and invaded Liberty and Tattnall Counties. The Yankee invaders forded Beards Creek and marched into defenseless Philadelphia, where they camped in the front yard of the Knight – Dubberly House. On or about December 15, the troops awoke and awaited orders from Colonel Atkins. As they had already done much damage in other parts of the county, Philadelphia seemed fit for the torch. Before ordering the destruction of the plantation and the surrounding village, Colonel Atkins entered the deserted house, where he discovered a Masonic emblem displayed on the mantel. He had received orders from General Sherman not to lay a hand on any property belonging to Masons, as Sherman himself allegedly belonged to the brotherhood. Atkins begrudgingly ordered his troops to leave the village, claiming that there wasn’t much worth burning there anyway. Despite his orders, some renegade troops had already ransacked part of the property, doing no significant damage. And thus, the Knight – Dubberly House was the savior of the village.
William and his second wife Mary Ellen Smiley Curry Dubberly (1832-1902) were the leading citizens of the village of Philadelphia, which eventually became the city of Glennville. William had deep roots in Philadelphia. He was the son of two of the village’s original settlers, Joseph and Holland Anderson Dubberly, and the grandson of Tattnall County pioneer and Revolutionary War veteran John Dubberly. Dubberly served as Justice of the Peace in the years following the Civil War, earning him the honorific “Squire” or “Squire Bill”. The area around Philadelphia grew rapidly in the years following the war and Squire Dubberly lived to see it become the city of Glennville in 1894.
I am most grateful to Dylan Edward Mulligan, one of Glennville’s finest historians and the great-great-great grandson of William Dubberly, for sharing all the history and all of the vintage images. This post would not have been possible without his assistance.
Dylan has a passion for the history of his home county that’s rarely seen these days. You may know him as The Georgia Sandman; he builds magnificent sandcastles along the Georgia and Florida coasts in the image of historical structures. If you haven’t seen his work, you really should pay him a visit on Facebook.
Please note the house is located on private property and is not accessible to the public.
Dylan Edward Mulligan writes: “This house was built in 1893 by J. B. Seckinger and was originally a single story house. It was purchased in 1916 by John Daniel Bradley, Sr., who was the president of the Collins & Glennville Railroad. The Bradleys remodeled the house in 1932, adding the second floor and the columned porch. It is still owned by a member of the Bradley family who does not reside in Glennville.“
Most small towns once had their own seafood markets and fishmongers, but this is increasingly rare today. The colorful murals were what first caught my eye.
As the sign suggests, they serve what they sell, so I hope to check them out.
