As someone who’s traveled the backroads of all 159 counties in Georgia pursuing what is left of our historic architecture, I have been amazed at how much has actually vanished in the 16+ years that I’ve been looking for old houses. Finding a gem like this is what still motivates me to hit the road. This house is a perfect example of the vernacular architecture that characterizes our collective rural history and its setting in a pecan orchard, with spring wildflowers blooming in the foreground, takes one back in time, to lives lived around manual labor and hardship, but also of simpler ways. The red paint is a bonus.
Like many single-pen houses, this one has a shed room across the back. One of the great aspects of utilitarian housing, to me, is its ability to evolve to fit the needs of those who call it home. Also notable in this example are the handmade bricks. I’d guess it was built sometime between 1890-1910.
Howard Smothers writes: “This church was built by cousins Zack Daniel and John Dowdell. They built this church after the other church they attended, Old Shady Grove, was burnt down. There is an old cemetery located on the property, too.“
The present structure was dedicated in October 1945 by Rev. D. A. Greene, who was pastor at the time. It’s located between Americus and Andersonville.
This is one of my earliest photographs for Vanishing Georgia, made in 2008, and I imagine the place is long gone. It was located on TV Towers Road. This is the back side of the structure; there was no other way to photograph it. I thought it a bit unusual then and still do, but I have encountered a few tenant structures with this boxy hip roof elsewhere. I’m identifying it as a tenant house because I can’t imagine what else it could be.
It’s been quite awhile since I visited Berlin (BUR-luhn) down in Colquitt County, but I’m told most of the old buildings I photographed are still standing. This one, which featured in another one of my Berlin photographs from 2013, has quite the history. The architectural style [shotgun] leads me to believe it was originally a general store of one kind or another, but it’s best remembered as General Browning’s barber shop. Wes Carter wrote to say that there was a red, white, and blue barber pole out front. More recently, it served as the Berlin Diner, whose faded sign is barely visible here. Surveys I consulted date the building to 1950, but I think it’s at least 20 years older.
This house has been repainted since I made this photograph, and I think some restoration work has been done. There are several Victorian residences in this neighborhood and at least a few of them are based on Barber pattern book designs. I’m not familiar enough with those works to know if this is a Barber, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The octagonal turret really adds to the character of this fine home.
I first published this photograph on 15 June 2010 under the title “Wisenbaker’s Grocery & Market”, but I’m replacing it with a new post to update what I’ve learned, and to share a little about Dasher, thanks to an excellent brief history of the community by Faye Cook Wisenbaker. I believe this sign came from another building and was saved for its local importance.
Faye writes that all of the area south of Valdosta in present-day Lowndes County has connections to the Dasher and Wisenbaker families, who had their Georgia origins with the Ebenezer Salzburgers of Effingham County. James Wisenbaker and Christian Herman Dasher are the earliest known members of their families to have arrived in this frontier area of the Wiregrass Region. Dasher is believed to have arrived circa 1832. James Wisenbaker was his son-in-law and they had left the Lutheran faith in 1819 and began having services in their homes.
The area around Dasher was first settled circa 1842. Richard Herman Wisenbaker was also living in the area around this time, as he established “a congregation of New Testament Christianity” which would eventually be known as the Corinth Church of Christ, and today, Corinth Baptist Church. Faye notes that sometime before 1861, Wisenbaker “constructed a home using slave labor”.
The town was formally established as a station of the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway in 1889 at the residence of Virgil Franklin Dasher. By 1916, thanks to the timber and turpentine business, and the presence of the railroad, Dasher was a thriving place. The Dasher Bible School was established during that year and met in the Church of Christ until building a larger campus in 1928.
Boston is a hidden gem, located near Thomasville and not far from Florida, with small but intact commercial and residential historic districts. It’s one of my favorite little towns in South Georgia.
According to the National Register of Historic Places nomination: The original settlement of Boston was located southeast of present day Thomasville and was little more than a stagecoach stop in 1826.In the late 1820s, the hamlet of Boston consisted of a few houses, a church, a mercantile, and a stagecoach stop. There are several differing accounts of how Boston was named. According to the Boston Edition, a 1906 article by Professor Axson Quarterman Moody, Principal of Boston Academy, the name “Boston” derives from the name “Botolph Town”, named for Saint Botolph, the noted 17th-century English educator. Other sources indicated that the town was named for Major Thomas M. Boston, a northern traveler who frequently visited Thomas County and the settlement of Boston by stagecoach in the early 1800s. A third account is that Joel Spencer and Eli Graves of Massachusetts named the town. Graves was one of the founding fathers of the Presbyterian Church at the original settlement location. The earliest settlers of Boston included the McLeods, McKinnons, McMillans, and the Mclntoshes, who reportedly came to the area in the late 1820s from South Carolina and before that, Scotland. There are three graves from the Mclntosh family located on the property that now includes Russell Dairy Farm on Sally Road (outside of district). Many believe that this is the site of the original settlement of Boston, however, maps of Thomas County from 1855 through 1865 show Boston in a different location and on an 1864 topographical map, the town is shown in two locations, neither of which appears to coincide with popular belief.
Regardless of the exact whereabouts of the original settlement, when the railroad tracks were laid in1860, city leaders made the decision to move the town. The new location was platted beginning in1860 and Boston was incorporated on October 24, 1870.
As with many historic settlements, we may never know the whole story, but Boston as it stands today has plenty of stories to tell.
Boston Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Near the depot in Boston is a small row of historic shotgun buildings and warehouses. These were related to agribusiness, seed storage, and livery stables. They don’t often get much attention, perhaps because they’re more utilitarian than they are aesthetically interesting, but they are as important to the development, perhaps more so, of our small rural towns as any bank or general store. The railroad was central to Boston’s development and these warehouses were directly tied to its success. In recent years, I believe they’ve been associated with the Boston Seed Company.
Boston Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
I made this photograph several years ago and, since that time, it has been repainted and completely restored, to my understanding. It’s quite difficult to photograph because of the asymmetry, the way it rambles in different sections, but it’s a great example of an “exotic” Queen Anne and one of the most unique Victorian homes in Thomasville.
Dawson Street Residential Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This historic structure, built in 1905, originally served as the administration building of Young’s Female College. According to Wikipedia, Young’s Female College was established in 1869, and had 15 teachers and 115 students in 1906. It was purchased in 1939 by the Rolt family and repurposed as the Rosemary Inn, a boarding house and hotel catering to the wealthy Northerners who spent their winters in Thomasville. Even with its current use as condominiums, it retains its original appearance.
Dawson Street Residential Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
