This utilitarian cottage has always been a favorite of mine. I never stopped to photograph because there was always an old car parked on the side and it wasn’t a convenient stop on the highway. I’ve passed it hundreds of times and always wanted to document it. I finally did a few weeks ago. It’s located between Flemington and McIntosh (the settlement in Liberty, not the county to the south).
Per Virginia Fraser Evans’s Liberty County: A Pictorial History, the E. C. Miller general store originally stood on the courthouse square in Hinesville but was later moved a few blocks away for preservation. Buddy Maertens wrote on Facebook: “The E.C. Miller General Store was the “Wal-Mart” of Hinesville, Georgia in 1900. My great grandfather, Elbert Calhoun Miller (1860-1925), owned the store and built a beautiful Victorian home behind the store in 1902.” Jim Moore also noted that it became a pool hall in the mid-1950s.
I don’t know when it was moved, but it’s an iconic form of late-19th and early 20th century store design and has obviously been restored in a historically considerate way.
As I’ve noted previously, Fleming is one of two communities in Liberty County named for the pioneer William Fleming family, who owned large area plantations. A post office named ‘Fleming’ was established in 1871. A few structures remain, including a precinct house (right) and fire station (center), though I believe the precinct is now closed.
I’m identifying this as a storefront, because there was an old portable sign beside it, but it could have just as well been a residence. I hope to learn more.
This is one of just a few historic structures located in Fleming. I don’t know it it is original to the location. It has a saddlebag floor plan, with a wing added later, though one could easily see it as Georgian Cottage in miniature.
Sources are quite varied as to the early history of Mt. Olivet Methodist Church, but I believe it was established circa 1843, per the Liberty County Historical Society, and the present structure built in 1881. A bicentennial history of the South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, published in 1984, posited that the congregation was established circa 1768-1770 as Pleasant Grove. My understanding is that Pleasant Grove was a satellite congregation of Midway, established in the early 1800s. Because of a plantation association, it catered more to its enslaved congregants, and as a result, its white members eventually established Mt. Olivet.
Stacy Ashmore Cole has done excellent research on the subject of the Pleasant Grove name and concluded: “There are several Pleasant Grove churches within the history of Liberty County…” including the “now-defunct Pleasant Grove Methodist Church that was an offshoot of the Midway Congregational Church. Founded in the early 1800’s, it was attended by both white and black – enslaved and free – members…The white membership of the church later founded the Mt. Olivet Methodist Church in Fleming, Liberty County, which still exists.”
I feel that this is the same Pleasant Grove referred to by Lillie Walthour Gillard in Liberty County: A Pictorial History: “A meeting house was erected on land between the North and South Newport rivers in 1806 and was named Pleasant Grove [possibly on Roswell King’s South Hampton plantation]. According to Dr. Stacy’s history of the Midway church, “Messrs. Bradwell, John Ashmore, Colonel Joseph Law and others held reading services every Sunday for the Negroes in that area. Later the Methodist circuit riders made it a station from which the Negroes benefited.”
Fleming (not to be confused with Flemington) is one of two communities in Liberty County named for the pioneer William Fleming family, who owned large area plantations. Fleming proper is actually a bit off GA-196 (Leroy Coffer Highway) on Fleming Loop, but since so many people take this shortcut between Hinesville and Savannah, this was a good place to put the name of this little-known community out there for everyone to see. This newer store and a fruit stand stay fairly busy, and no doubt the Coca-Cola mural, done in the old style, still draws people off the road.
And a brief message to those of you who have sent me messages recently. Thanks for your concern, and yes, I’m still around. I will do my best to answer as many of you as possible. Year’s end has found me getting the gamut of mid-life medical tests and all the fun that entails, and planning some new directions for Vanishing Georgia. I just wanted check in and will keep you all posted.
Construction of the Hinesville Shaw Rosenwald School, as it was originally known, began in 1930 and was completed in 1931, fulfilling the goal of the Rosenwald Fund to provide state-of-the-art schools to black children in the segregated Jim Crow South who otherwise would not have had access to quality education. The Trustees of the Hinesville Colored Schools (Alonzo Simpson, J. H. Gause, and Robert Duggan) helped secure the local funding required to match the gift of the Rosenwald Fund.
The Rosenwald School was originally a comprehensive facility housing grades 1-11. I’m unsure when it became an elementary school, but the addition of a wing to the original Rosenwald structure, and a later separate building, were likely constructed during the era of Equalization Schools (1950s). It has long been known as the Hineshaw School/Hineshaw Elementary School. Neighborhood resident and businesswoman Rebecca Hargrove Shipman sold property adjacent to the school for the nominal fee of $1 to ensure street access to the campus. Two of those streets bear her name today, Rebecca Street and Shipman Avenue. Trustee J. H. Gause was also honored with a street bearing his name.
The campus remained in use in one form or another until the early 2000s but has been abandoned for many years. Neglect and storm damage have endangered the building and immediate stabilization is needed. It has recently been announced that Hinesville Downtown Development Authority is planning to restore the Rosenwald School.
Liberty County received historic snowfall on Tuesday night as a result of Winter Storm Enzo, a weather system that brought blizzard conditions to the Gulf Coast and lower Southeast. I’m sharing a few random landmarks from my local rambles of the past week. My only regret is that I couldn’t photograph everything. I hope you enjoy seeing these as much as I enjoyed making them. I’ll be sharing some shots from Long County, as well.
Bacon-Fraser House, built circa 1839, Hinesville
Old Liberty County Jail, Hinesville
Liberty County Justice Center, Hinesville
Old Liberty County Courthouse, Hinesville
Hinesville Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Hinesville
Zum Rosenhof, Hinesville
Flemington Presbyterian Church, built in 1852, Flemington
Miller Park Fire Station, near McIntosh (the lost village, not the county)
Hall and Parlor Cottage, Liberty County
Midway Congregational Church of Christ, established in 1872, Midway
Dorchester Academy Boys Dormitory, Midway
Lambright House, Freedmen’s Grove
Midway Churchyard, Midway
Midway Congregational Church, built circa 1792, Midway
This house is a shotgun form with added Craftsman details.