David Ardis (1804-1872) and Eliza C. Gray Ardis (1804-1867) are the earliest known owners of this home, one of the few antebellum residences in Marietta to survive the Civil War. They regularly came to Marietta as a retreat from the hot summers of their native Edgefield, South Carolina, and moved here permanently circa 1850. Ardis Street in Marietta is named for this family. The house is now home to the Little & Smith Insurance Company.
Northwest Marietta Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This house was built in the Greek Revival style circa 1851 for John Heyward Glover, Jr, most likely with the labor of enslaved people. It was restored and given its present Victorian appearance after a fire in the 1870s. Another fire in the 1930s destroyed the second floor and it was redesigned, with an altered roofline, by architect Montgomery Anderson.
John Heyward Glover, Jr. (1816-1859), originally a South Carolina rice planter, became a prominent local entrepreneur in Marietta, serving as its first mayor in 1852. He was instrumental in several early businesses in town, including a tannery and bank, with interest in a telegraph company.
Whitlock Avenue Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The William Root House is a typical I-House form with a shed room at the rear (Plantation Plain), enhanced by a vernacular Greek Revival portico. Built circa 1845, it is one of the oldest houses in Marietta and an inspiring preservation success story. It was facing demolition when it was saved by Cobb Landmarks and now serves as a cultural and historic focal point. It was originally located two blocks east on the northeast corner of Church and Lemon streets and has been relocated twice. In 1893, the house was repositioned on its original lot. In 1989, it was relocated two blocks to its present location and restored. It is now an award-winning house museum, operated by Cobb Landmarks.
William Root (1815-1891), a native of Philadelphia, moved to Marietta in 1839, five years after the city’s founding. He began working as an assistant in William H. Kitchens’s drug store in Augusta in 1836, then relocated to Hamburg, South Carolina, in 1837. After a brief return to Philadelphia in 1838, he came back to Augusta in 1839 and then moved to Marietta to open a new drug and grocery store for Kitchens. On 15 September 1840, he married Hannah Rhemer Simpson (1807-1886).
The business grew quickly and Root became an influential pioneer citizen of Marietta. He helped establish St. James Episcopal Church. In 1844 he purchased the business from Kitchens and built this home about a year later. The Roots had five children (one son died as a toddler), and, according to the 1860 census, four enslaved people in their service. Cobb Landmarks has identified two of the enslaved by name: Lall Burge, who was likely a butler, or house servant, and Elsay Blake, also a domestic laborer.
With Atlanta and environs in the crosshairs of the Union armies, the Root family relocated to Washington, Georgia, in June 1864. They returned to a ruined Marietta on 15 July 1865, but fared better than many others, who lost everything. They were able to reoccupy their house. According to family papers, William Root noted, “Our dwelling, though damaged, was in tolerable condition.”
In 1866 William Root opened a new store on the Marietta Square, and owned the entire block bounded by Church, Ardis, Cherokee, and Lemon streets, the block on which the Root House originally stood. Marietta quickly rebuilt after the war and by the 1870s, Root’s sons joined him in business. He sold it to John R. Winters in 1884 and retired.
This is another fine example of the Greek Revival cottage style so popular in antebellum Columbus. Like its neighbor, in the previous post, it has been expanded over time and has had decorative elements added, but to no detrimental effect.
Columbus Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This cottage has been expanded at the rear section, but retains its historic integrity. It’s one of my favorite houses in Columbus, though I have been unable to locate any history beyond an approximate date of construction. The ornamentation is a stylistic addition, likely done 20-40 years after the house was built.
Columbus Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Richard Rose Goetchius (1814-1875) came to Columbus from New York in 1834 and quickly established himself as a prominent builder and architect. He built this grand Greek Revival cottage as a gift for his wife, Mary Ann Bennett Goetchius (1819-1878), upon their marriage in 1839. It originally stood at 11th Street and 2nd Avenue but was moved circa 1970 to save it from commercial development.
All six of the Goetchius children, five sons and a daughter, were born in the house. The two eldest sons died in the Civil War. Another son died in early childhood. One son became a Columbus lawyer and another a Presbyterian minister. Their daughter, Mary Goetchius McKinley, died in childbirth, and her daughter Mary McKinley Wellborn, eventually inherited the house. It remained in the family until 1969.
It has been completely restored by its new owners, who have transformed it into a popular gourmet restaurant.
This house did not originate as an octagon house, but rather as a small cottage built circa 1830, now incorporated into the present structure. Until 1857, it was owned by Alfred Iverson, Sr. (1798-1873), a native of Liberty County and Princeton-trained lawyer who later served in the House of Representatives and the U. S. Senate, and his wife, Julia, the daughter of Georgia governor and future U.S. Secretary of State John Forsyth.
The property was purchased by contractor and cabinetmaker Leander May in 1862. May added the octagonal front to the existing Iverson cottage, and then transformed the original structure into an octagon, creating a double octagon house. Neighbors found it it odd and dubbed it May’s Folly, or simply The Folly.Octagon houses were a short-lived Victorian craze that never fully caught on, making them rare as hens’ teeth today. The rear section was returned to a rectangular form at a later date, but a 1968 fire confirmed that May had made it octagonal, as well.
Though it is often claimed to be the only double octagon house in the nation, there are apparently a few others, depending on how the term is defined. Still, it is an exceedingly rare form, and it’s the only residential property afforded National Historic Landmark status in Columbus.
This house was located at the corner of Front Avenue and 8th Street, overlooking the Chattahoochee River, until 1969, when it was moved to its present site by the Historic Columbus Foundation. Little of the early history of the house is known; it was purchased by saloon keeper Francis Marion Bagley (1845-1903) around the turn of the 20th century.
Columbus Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This Greek Revival cottage is thought to have been built for John Spencer Roberts, the founder of Georgia Webbing & Tape, an early Columbus industrial concern, though further information on Mr. Roberts or his company has not been easy to locate. By 1896, it was home to Joseph Hecht (1844-1917) and Adele Kober Hecht (1859-1920). The Hechts were Austrian Jews who came to Columbus in the 1860s and later established Hecht’s Candy Company, a successful wholesaler.
It’s been home to Charles E. Huff’s International Funeral Home for many years.
