This iconic Washington home was given to the State of Georgia for use as a house museum in 1957 and ownership was eventually returned to city. It has served as the Washington Historical Museum for many years and many consider it to be one of the best small-town museums in the state.
Built by Albert Gallatin Semmes circa 1835, it was originally a much simpler vernacular house, of the saltbox style. Semmes did not live in Washington for long, leaving for Florida in 1836. The house was sold to Mary Sneed in 1836. Georgia’s first Railroad Commissioner and an editor of the Augusta Chronicle, Samuel Jack Barnett, Jr., purchased it in 1857 and enlarged and gave it its present appearance. His heirs sold it to William Armstrong Slaton in 1913 and he owned it until his death in 1954.
Most of the old roadside motels that proliferated in the post-World War II years are long gone, but they once numbered in the thousands all over the country. Occasionally, their old signs can still be found and have taken on landmark status all their own. Washington has two of these signs: the Angus Motel, and this one, the Red Land Motel. Amazingly, the Red Land, while modernized, is still in business.
This annotated history is from their website: …Walton and Joanne Hardin built the Red Land Motel. The amenities in motels were spartan back then, but no expense was spared at the Red Land. [It] boasted of refrigerated air conditioning, private bathrooms in each room-equipped with showers, and each room was carpeted. Opening for business in 1952, the Red Land Motel quickly became a local landmark, and took her place in American history as a roadside motor lodge.Over the next 25 years…two of the original buildings were torn down, so as to make room for a pair of new two-story buildings…
The Red Land Motel borrows her name for famous (or infamous?) Georgia Red Clay. Among the locals there is a love-hate relationship with red clay. However, when one of our own moves away, they always know home is close by when the hills on the roadside have that familiar red hue.
Cherry Grove Baptist Church, like multitudes of historic African-American congregations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was as committed to the education of its children as it was to catering to the spiritual needs of its community. They built this little one-room schoolhouse circa 1910 for that purpose. In the Jim Crow era, there was little to no emphasis placed on the literacy of Black children by the state, so that responsibility was borne by churches. Philanthropic organizations such as the the Rosenwald Fund began building schools for these under-served communities in 1912, but Cherry Grove predates that time and is therefore an important link to a part of our history that is often overlooked.
Recent historical resource surveys have identified 15 of these church-supported schoolhouses in Georgia, and most can be considered highly endangered resources. They may have once numbered in the hundreds, so their loss is significant, not only to the Black community but to the historical record as well.
The Cherry Grove School, with one teacher overseeing grades 1-7, closed in 1956. This was an effect of widespread consolidation which saw the state building better Black schools, known as Equalization Schools, in an effort to delay the desegregation mandated by Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The school deteriorated with the passage of time, and was as endangered as all the other Black schoolhouses in Georgia. Thanks to the work of Barrett Hanson and the Friends of Cherry Grove Schoolhouse, this special place has been given a new lease on life and will hopefully serve a new educational purpose to coming generations. Their efforts saw the school placed on the National Register of Historic Places and were recognized earlier this year with the prestigious Marguerite Williams Award, given by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation for the project that made the greatest impact on historic preservation in Georgia.
Cherry Grove Baptist Church was established by members of Springfield Baptist Church in Washington who sought a more convenient place of worship near their rural community. That community, which came to be known as Cohentown, was formally established a few years later by Peter Arnett (1842-1891), a formerly enslaved man who purchased over 60 acres from an ex-Confederate soldier and opened the area to Black ownership.
As with most rural churches of the era, Cherry Grove first held services in a brush arbor, then built a log structure, before constructing a more formal home. That structure served from the late 1800s until it was lost in a storm in the early 1900s. The present structure, seen here, was built in the first decade of the 20th century and the brick was added much later.
Some of the ministers of the church are listed on a cornerstone, though the list is incomplete. They include: W. M. Gladmon; C. L. Lockhart; E. D. Harris; Samuel Sims; Eddie Thomas; and Ervin Norman, Sr.
The land on which this fine Greek Revival plantation house stands has been in the Willis family since James Henry Willis married Sarah A. Barksdale in 1840. Mr. Willis began construction on the house in 1854, according to his granddaughter Mary Sale Stennett, and it was completed in 1857. Willis was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives the year the house was completed and served in the 1857-1858 term.
It is believed to be the first of three houses within a six-mile radius attributed to James Cunningham, an area carpenter. The Chenault House and Matthews House, in Lincoln County, and by influence, the Anderson House in nearby Danburg, make up this collective resource. The Chennault House is the closest in appearance to the Willis-Sale-Stennett House.
John L. Anderson was the fourth generation of his family to live in the Danburg area, and upon his return from service in the Civil War, bought the land on which he would build this fine home. It is a massive presence and its landscaped grounds are a symbol of this small community. The house is late Greek Revival with strong Victorian details.
Our friend Tom Poland, a well-known writer from the area, said this about the house in his essay on Danburg: …the Pink Anderson House, a place mom remembers well though she never went inside. This stately home on the National Register of Historic Places is a Greek Revival home. It most likely incorporates an earlier building Dr. W. D. Quinn erected in the 1790s. So says the research. John Anderson later built the home as it appears today. The home’s columns came from Savannah, the mirrors and cornices from England. New York and Chicago provided the home’s fine furniture and curtains. A 24 x 35 foot banquet room and stone kitchen stood in a separate building connected to the main home by a breezeway.
The last Anderson to live in the home was Miss Pink Anderson, thus my mom’s reference to the place as the Pink Anderson home. Miss Pink lived there during the Great Depression. Money was beyond tight and the formal gardens and fountain vanished as vines and undergrowth took over.
The home sat empty for many years until 1962 when mom’s Uncle Ernest Walker bought it and remodeled it. The roof of the old kitchen and dining room had fallen in, leaving the walls standing. Down they came, demolished.
...It’s beautiful. The home and its columns squarely face the road. A large holly and magnolia contest each other for space and both conspire to hide one of the columns gracing the home. A classic white picket fence fronts the building, which sits right at the edge of Highway 44.
The Anderson House is generally thought to be influenced by and therefore grouped with three other nearby houses thought to be the work of John Cunningham, an area carpenter with special skills. [The Willis-Sale-Stennett House, in the Danburg vicinity, the Chenault House, and Matthews House, in nearby Lincoln County]. Cunningham was gone from the area by 1861 and a Danburg tradition states that a so-far-unknown black carpenter directed the building of the Anderson House.
The old Danburg School is standing, but not accessible as it is on private property. The gymnasium is visible from the road. The school was built in 1926 and this structure is typical of gymnasiums built between circa 1920s-1940s. Football wasn’t nearly as dominant in the first half of the 20th century as it is today and basketball reigned supreme in smaller communities. This would have been a busy place in its day, though by 1944 the school was consolidated with Tignall.
This vernacular Greek Revival lodge of the Free & Accepted Masons is a nice rural landmark. There aren’t a lot of lodges of this style in Georgia. This one has been slightly modified, appearing to be “stripped” of some of its elements [perhaps a front porch; the entry has also been reduced in sized] but is still a great representation of the form.
This general store, identified by Doris Rhodes as the John Major’s Store, appears to be the older of two stores standing in Danburg. When viewed beside the Lindsey Store, it’s also a good example of differences, even with one style, that can be found in vernacular architecture. Both stores are of the shotgun variety, but this store is characterized by higher walls and windows, as well as a greater depth.
It originally featured a shed porch and had a gas pump out front. A 2008 Google Street View of the location confirms this architectural change.
