Belk department stores were often a feature of smaller and mid-sized Georgia towns during much of the 20th century. The Belk-Gallant stores were mostly located in Northeast Georgia.
Washington Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Upon its opening in 1889, the Mary Willis Library was the first free library in Georgia. It was founded by Dr. Francis T. Willis in memory of his daughter and as a gift to the people of his hometown and county. Dr. Willis left Washington for Richmond, Virginia, in 1867 and never lost his love for Wilkes County and its people. An 1894 catalog of the library states that the cost of the building was $15,000, the furniture and the first collection of books, $2,000, and that a fund of $10,000 was provided by Dr. Willis as endowment. Dr. Willis also donated his personal library, as did his half-brother, Samuel Barnett, first president of the library trustees. Many rare books from that core collection are still held by the library, as well as an extensive archive of local and regional ephemera.
Architect Edmund Lind of Atlanta designed the library building. Stained-glass windows illuminate the interior and the central window, commemorating Mary Willis, was made by Tiffany.
National Register of Historic Places
From a history by the Very Rev. Dr. John Via: Continuing the historic and catholic witness of the Church of England, Anglican worship has been a part of the Washington experience from the town’s earliest days. Families would gather in homes to share Morning and evening Prayer and to celebrate the Holy Communion when a priest was available. The Episcopal Church of the Mediator was founded as a worshipping [sic] community in 1868 under the leadership of the Reverend Joshua Knoles [sic], a missionary priest from Massachusetts, with services at first held in the Masonic Hall. The first church building was on West Robert Toombs Avenue. When that building was destroyed in the great town fire of 1895, pine pews, the eighteenth-century altar, and the baptismal font were saved and are in use in the present church structures. The new church building, built as some parishioners felt “too far out of town,” was consecrated in 1896, and is a fine example of the Victorian Gothic style. The church is graced by remarkable stained-glass windows, thirty-three panels designed by and executed in the studio of the internationally-known Wilbur Burnham.
East Robert Toombs Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The Washington Presbyterian Church of Washington, Georgia, was organized in early 1790 (exact date unknown). In April, 1790, the Providence, Smyrna, and Washington Presbyterian churches issued a call to John Springer to be their pastor, which he accepted. At that time he was president of Cambridge College in Ninety-Six, South Carolina and a supply preacher in South Carolina and Georgia. On July 22, 1790, Springer became the first Presbyterian minister to be ordained in Georgia. The ordination took place under a poplar tree one mile east of the present church building. The tree has become famous as “the Presbyterian Poplar”. Wood from that tree was used to make the cross that now hangs in the chancel as well as the offering plates. Presentation gavels for distinguished speakers in the pulpit are made from the same wood. The Sanctuary was erected in 1825. It was a single room building with two front doors. The vestibule and steeple were added in 1839 and the front porch was added in the 1890’s. The fellowship hall was added in 1940. Rev. Alexander Hamilton Webster was stated supply, 1824-1827. He was serving as rector of the Academy (in Washington) during that time and accepted a call to be pastor, but died in an epidemic before he could be installed as pastor. He was buried between the two front doors of the church. When the vestibule was added in 1839, his grave stone was elevated to its present position in the narthex. The Hook & Hastings organ, Opus 1382, was installed in 1888. It was manually pumped until this century when an electric blower was added. It was completely reconditioned in 1990. This excellent history is from Washington Presbyterian’s Facebook page.
National Register of Historic Places
From the historic marker: This Federal style house was begun in 1814 by Sarah Porter Hillhouse, who came to Washington in 1786 from Connecticut with her husband David. In 1801, David purchased the town’s first newspaper The Monitor, and when he died in 1803, Sarah became the first woman in Georgia to edit and publish a newspaper which she continued to run for more than a decade, along with the print shop her husband had established. Here she also printed the official records of the state legislature. Articles in The Monitor, which generally had a circulation of 700 to 800, give a vivid account of events of interest to the people of Washington in the early 1800’s. Mrs. Hillhouse’s other business interests included trading in land and commerce. Her letters provide an interesting insight to life in early Washington. She was a successful businesswoman at a time when women were seldom active outside the home, and she helped to build a frontier village into a thriving community. Sarah died in 1831.
Her home was enlarged to its present form in 1869, when Gabriel Toombs (son of Confederate Secretary of State and brigadier general Robert Toombs) acquired the property, and moved the end rooms from the Toombs Plantation on log rollers and added them to the house. Toombs and his descendants lived here for more than a century.
East Robert Toombs Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Wisteria Hall was built in 1795 and originally faced north toward the old Augusta Highway. In 1824, Miss Maria Randolph, a descendant of Pocahontas, purchased the house and transformed it into a showplace. Maria was a well-loved hostess famous for big parties and dances. She added a dining room to the house and it was known to be the largest entertainment space in town. Soon after she moved in, Main Street was extended from the Town Square beyond Wisteria Hall and at this time she added the portico and reoriented of the house to face south.
The walls in the parlor are original to the house and were made of clay, horsehair and lime, with the horsehair used as a binder. 18″ crown moldings and rimlocks are also original and intact.
During the Civil War, Logan Bleckley of Rabun County was an occasional visitor at Wisteria Hall. He would go onto to become a Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, a philosopher and mathematician.
Future President Woodrow Wilson was also a guest at Wisteria Hall in his youth.
In 1995, Jim and Jane Bundy bought and extensively restored this landmark and transformed it into a bed and breakfast.
East Robert Toombs Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Robert and Martha Julianna Dubose Toombs purchased this house in 1837 and lived here until their deaths. The front facade of the house is the most impressive part of the structure, with the colonnade added by Toombs being its defining feature. Robert Toombs was born near Washington on 2 July 1810 and was a child prodigy of sorts, enrolling in Franklin College (now the University of Georgia) at the age of 14. He was expelled from the institution for his indifference to its rules but appeared on campus during graduation ceremonies and made a rousing speech beneath a nearby oak tree, drawing out students from the commencement ceremony. Toombs furthered his education at Union College in New York City and the University of Virginia Law School.
He began practicing law at the age of 18 and was elected to the Georgia House at age 28. Elected to Congress as a Whig in 1844, he later became a Democrat. From 1855-61 he served in the United States Senate. Early in the growing debate over states’ rights, he was a staunch Unionist but by the late 1850s was convinced that secession was eminent. Upon Lincoln’s election in 1860, he telegraphed Georgia leaders, urging that secession be “thundered forth from the ballot-box by the United voice of Georgia.” He soon resigned the Senate and returned to Georgia to participate in the Secession Convention. He had hoped to be chosen President of the Confederate States, but became their first Secretary of State instead.
He left the Confederate Cabinet in 1861 and on 19 July was named a brigadier general, serving in the Peninsula, Northern Virginia and Maryland campaigns. After successful service, he resigned his commission in 1863 and returned to Georgia. He would remain a vocal opponent of Jefferson Davis throughout the remainder of the war but served again as a brigadier general in General Gustavus W. Smith’s Georgia Militia. As the confederacy collapsed, Toombs fled to Havana and then to Paris with General P. G. T. Beauregard. Returning to Georgia in 1867, he remained an ardent supporter of states’ rights and never requested a pardon from the United States, therefore never regaining his right to vote. He was one of the leaders of Georgia’s Constitutional Convention of 1876.
Robert Toombs died on 15 December 1885, an unreconstructed rebel until the end. The home is open for tours and is among Georgia’s most important Civil War historic sites.
National Historic Landmark
East Robert Toombs Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Built in the Federal style around 1800, this grand home took on its present appearance with the addition of the colonnade around 1841. Duncan G. Campbell, its first notable resident, was involved in the treaty that removed the Cherokee Indians from Georgia and also for introducing in the Georgia Legislature the first bill for providing for higher education for women. His son, John Archibald Campbell, was born here in 1811. The younger Campbell served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1853 until 1861, when he resigned to become Assistant Secretary of War of the Confederate States of America. After the war he practiced law in New Orleans.
National Register of Historic Places
Though it now has an eclectic appearance, this house appears to have originated in the Federal Style.