Category Archives: Oakland GA

Byne Plantation House, Circa 1883, Lee County

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This exquisite Georgian Cottage, heavily influenced by the Greek Revival, is, architecturally, one of the finest houses in Lee County. According to the History of Lee County, Georgia (1983), it has traditionally been known as the Byne Plantation. It’s still at the center of a large working farm in the historic Oakland community.

Gilbert M. Byne (1825-1910) was the first member of the Byne family to live in Lee County, establishing a large plantation near this site upon his arrival. He married Georgia Virginia McKnight (1854-1924) of Coweta County in 1883 and continued to expand his land holdings throughout his life. He also served as a Lee County commissioner. Gilbert’s grandfather, the Rev. Edmund Byne (1730-1814), migrated from King and Queen County, Virginia, to Burke County, Georgia, in 1781, and founded two churches there.

I first thought the house to be of antebellum construction but after consulting the Lee County history, believe it was built in the early 1880s, soon after Gilbert was married. The history notes that he had a new road cut through the area to accommodate such a place. The Bynes’s only child to live to adulthood, Marilu Byne (1890-1979), married Alvah Wallace Barrett, Sr. (1889-1956), and they continued to maintain the plantation until the waning days of the Great Depression, when they lost the property through a mortgage to the Haley family.

The Georgian Cottage type, two bays deep divided by a central hallway and therefore symmetrical in layout, is inherently Greek Revival in spirit, and this house certainly exemplifies that. It’s a well-maintained beauty.

Precinct House, Lee County

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I’m out on a limb identifying this structure, but I believe it’s an old precinct house, or courthouse as they’re often known in Southwest Georgia. It certainly looks like dozens of other structures used for this purpose that I have documented over the years. I’ll go further and suggest it may be the Oakland, or Oakland Road, precinct. [I found Oakland, Georgia, on Google Earth, just up the road from this building. Oakland never had a post office; it’s just one of those places that is/was locally known as a neighborhood.] Historically, this area has been characterized by large plantations centered primarily around extensive pecan orchards. It’s a very rural area on the fringes of Albany’s continued northward expansion.

I’ll gladly update if I learn more.