This Folk Victorian cottage is the center of an amazing historic farmstead. A breezeway connects a kitchen behind the house. Tom Peterson writes: This house was built by William James Peterson in 1876…William James and his wife, Catherine Joanna Calhoun Peterson, had 12 children, all born in this house. It is currently owned by Hugh Peterson and has been the site of the annual Peterson Family reunion since 1922.
The property is one of the most intact I’ve stumbled upon, and its numerous outbuildings are perfectly maintained.
There are at least four log barns on the property.
While log barns and homes are still built today, it’s highly unusual to find this many older examples.
During the 1920s, this board-and-batten single-pen cottage was the childhood home of one of America’s most famous athletes. Born on 3 May 1921 to Walker Smith, Sr., a Dublin, Georgia, native, and Leila Hurst, from Johnson County, Walker Smith, Jr., came to be known as Sugar Ray Robinson and went on to worldwide fame and fortune. According to his autobiography, his father, who worked as a farm laborer, eventually moved the family to Detroit in search of better opportunity. The Smiths had two daughters, as well. The couple separated in the early 1930s, but may not have divorced. Walker Smith, Sr., was buried in Detroit and Leila Smith in Westchester County, New York. In Sugar Ray, Robinson’s posthumous autobiography published in 1994, he notes that the family moved to New York City around this time. [There is some conflict with dates and facts in the autobiography and Robinson’s official website, though they are trivial.]
Original Jan 30 1947 Sugar Ray Robinson Welterweight Champion Boxing Wire Photo, Acme Newsphotos. Public domain.
Smith dropped out of high school in ninth grade and though he initially wanted to be a doctor became fascinated by boxing. When he was turned away from entering his first match at age 14 because he was too young to be a member of the Amateur Athletic Union, he used the identification card of a friend at the gym, Ray Robinson, and that name stuck. He told Time magazine in a 1951 cover story (“Businessman Boxer”, 25 June 1951) that a woman attending a fight in Watertown, New York, said he was “sweet as sugar”, and the name Sugar Ray Robinson was born. He turned pro in 1940 and compiled a record of 129-1-2 with 85 knockouts. He held numerous titles and is widely regarded as the greatest boxer of all time, pound-for-pound.
His first marriage, to Marjorie Joseph in 1938, was short-lived and was annulled the same year. They had a son, Ronnie Smith. Robinson married Edna Mae Holly (1915-2002), who was a dancer at Harlem’s famous Cotton Club, in 1943 or 1944. They had one child, Ray Robinson, Jr. but the couple divorced in 1962. He later married Mildred “Millie” Wiggins Bruce, in 1965, and the couple moved to Los Angeles. He faced many health issues in his final years, suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and diabetes, and died on 12 April 1989.
A personal note: I’ve been trying to “find this house” for as long I’ve known of its existence, but wasn’t able to pinpoint the location for various reasons. After seeing it positively identified by friends at Ethos Preservation in Savannah, I realized I already had photographs and just didn’t know it was “the” house. I understand there are no plans for preservation at this time, and while the house is in relatively good condition, it should at least have an historic marker denoting its significance. I believe it would be of interest to tourists and boxing fans and perhaps in a perfect world would be a small museum honoring the career of this native son.
This home was built by the first settler and namesake of Homerville, Dr. John Homer Mattox (1827-1895) in 1853. In the winter of that year, Dr. Mattox moved his family from their home on the Suwannee River, near the Florida line, to this location. His wife was Lucinda M. Sheffield (1825-1906), daughter of Isham and Lucinda Harrell Sheffield. They eventually had seven children.
Dr. Mattox was the son of Col. Elijah Bankston Mattox (1798-1856) and Lavinia M. Johnson Mattox (1803-1882), who came to Ware County (Clinch County was created in 1850), from Tattnall County. Though a physician by training, Dr. Mattox, according to Folk Huxford’s History of Clinch County (1916), was more interested in farming and business pursuits than the practice of medicine. His brother, Dr. L. C. Mattox, also a physician, lived nearby.
To attract the railroad to locate a station on his land, Dr. Mattox granted them right of way and gave a large lot in the center of the community for public use. The Atlantic & Gulf Railroad laid track here in 1860. The settlement was first officially known as Station No. 11, but when a post office was opened, it was named Homerville, for Dr. Mattox. There was an immediate push to remove the county seat from Magnolia to Homerville, and the legislature authorized this change in December 1860.
Kathryn Griffis Poppell and Kathy M. Poppell donated the home to the city in 2000 and it now serves as the Chamber of Commerce.
Mt. Olive Primitive Baptist Church, near Manor, is the 14th Crawfordite meeting house I have documented in Georgia, the culmination of work that began well over a decade ago.
In that time, I’ve come to consider them an architectural and cultural treasure and admire them as landmarks of vernacular architecture.
As I’ve said before, they inspire even those without religion in their simplicity and practicality, and architecturally, are examples of sound construction and periodic restoration in the traditional sense.
The churches are all isolated but form a collective resource nonetheless.
Some are still in use while others are not, but in one way or another, they are all watched over by the families with connections to the congregations.
The Crawfordites, whom I’ve already discussed at length elsewhere on this website, were/are a subset of the Primitive Baptists who began forming congregations in the 1860s and 1870s, according to historian Dr. John G. Crowley.
In The History of Brooks County, Georgia (1948) Folks Huxford notes that area around Hickory Head was settled long before the Civil War by families from Bulloch, Jones, and Houston Counties. The families were comprised of hard-working farmers who valued their faith and strongly embraced education. They were members of Liberty Baptist Church, which was established in 1841. A. W. Groover donated land for the establishment of a school in 1866, and in either 1867 or 1869, it was built with funds raised through subscription. Mr. Groover, alongside W. H. Stanley and C. A. Davis, served as the first trustees of the Hickory Head Academy. Edwin B. Carroll, who would later serve as pastor at Hickory Head Baptist Church, was the first schoolmaster.
A plaque on the building notes that it was used as a school until 1925. Just a handful of rural academies like Hickory Head survive today, so that alone is an important part of its story, but its association with the Hickory Head Agricultural Club is quite extraordinary, as well. Folks Huxford suggests the club was established circa 1885 and met in the schoolhouse. Member farmers became widely known for shipping ham and bacon at a time when most of the South was importing meat from the Northwest. Brooks County pork, raised largely on peanuts, was in great demand. Hickory Head farmers were also among the first in the region to use ice in the cooling of meat, coming from Maine by way of Savannah. With modern innovations, the club faded over the years, but was revived as the Hickory Head Farm Club in 1946.
The building has also served as a voting precinct and is still used by the community for special events. It’s had a long and productive history.
In Folks Huxford’s TheHistory of Brooks County (1948 ), a history of Hickory Head Baptist Church by Mrs. J. G. Stanley and Mrs. A. J. Reamy tells of the origins of the church. Members of Liberty Baptist Church, at present-day Grooverville, who lived closer to Hickory Head Academy began holding prayer meetings there in 1870. This led to the formal establishment of the church in 1872, and the construction of a permanent home in 1873. The original sanctuary, if this is indeed it, has obviously been expanded over time. The nicely manicured churchyard and cemetery are community landmarks.
The side-gabled cottage with two front doors is among the rarer vernacular house types in Georgia, though it was once common as mill and tenant housing. This example in the Red Hills, and the three houses that follow, all represent distinct vernacular architectural types. They’re in a community known on maps as Piscola. Though named for nearby Piscola Creek, it may have had been related to a plantation. There were three African-American churches and a school in the general area, which was presumably populated by timber and turpentine workers.
Pine Hill Church is surrounded by beautifully maintained Longleaf Pine plantation lands in the Red Hills region. The small building is a simple vernacular form, two bays deep, with a very notable steeple, which has recently been restored.
An African-American congregation, Pine Hill members were most likely employees of the nearby lumber and turpentine operations, and some may have come from the white congregations of nearby Grooverville.
It’s become quite unusual to find tenant properties that retain outbuildings. A shed and privy are still standing on this property, along with the house.
Privy
The house is a classic double-pen form with an added shed room.
Tenant House
Considering the location, these tenants would have been employed in the turpentine and/or timber business.
