This historic farmstead is located near the Broad Level community of northern Long County, an area that was once a center of turpentine production and timber cultivation. There are several surviving barns and outbuildings, including one roofed with Ludowici Tile. I’m not sure about its history, but chances are it was connected in some way to the turpentine industry. It has been relatively well preserved, a great example of a “middle class” working farm from the early years of the 20th century.
This home is obviously still well-loved by the family who call it home. It’s a central hallway with Queen Anne porch posts and a half story above the main floor. A shed room at the rear of the house and an attached kitchen complete the scene, a classic of vernacular architecture and rural Georgia.
Earlier today I published a photo of this structure, which was mysterious because of its lack of windows; I thought it may have been a long-forgotten church or schoolhouse. This led to a conversation with Ron Weatherford, who explained that this was originally a farmhouse but was converted to use as a barn after the owners built a newer house across the dirt road. He also noted that the property had been clearcut recently.
Ron wrote that about 600 acres here was owned by the Hutchesons but they never lived here. However, their daughter, who married a Caldwell, did. It was known as the Caldwell place thereafter. The Caldwells lived here for decades.
There was something familiar about the house and I realized I’d photographed it, I believe on a barn hunting trip with Cal Avery and Mike McCall in 2014. I published it as “Board-and-Batten Farmhouse, Emanuel County” on 11 February 2014. The property was very overgrown at the time but I was able to point my camera inside and document the beautiful walls in the old place. Ron Weatherford wrote at the time that this room was the Caldwell’s bedroom. He said that when they moved to a more modern house on the property, a farmhand moved in. After it was abandoned, vandals ransacked the place and stole porcelain doorknobs and other relics.
I wasn’t able to get a good shot of the front of the house, which was probably built in the 1920s, but took photos from other perspectives. An old cedar tree, probably planted as a seedling by the Caldwells, heavily shades the front porch.
This house is adjacent to a nice old pecan orchard and there were once many outbuildings [dependencies] around it. A tenant house still stands in the orchard. It’s located near the Cross and Green community. Charles Elliot, Jr., says it was originally associated with the E. B. Lamb property. While the structures are abandoned and in serious decline, the farm is obviously still productive. The house has probably been empty for many years.
In style, the house is eclectic, with predominately Victorian details. The front bay is Queen Anne but the brick columns represent a more “modern” addition. There was once a porte cochere to the right but I believe it has collapsed or been removed.
They may all look alike, after a fashion, but the Georgian cottages of Effingham County are an important collective resource and I am happy to document as many as I can. This one is particularly nice, with several protective Corgis greeting me with barks as I stood on the road and made my photograph.
A sign out front identified this as Mazie’s Place.
This is located near a large farm, so I’m identifying it as a tenant house. Many such residences became rental properties after the sharecropping era and as they became too expensive to modernize, were abandoned. The gable front form was a slight upgrade from the standard shotgun house, affording a little more space for hardworking families who labored nearby. The addition of a canopy over the porch was certainly an improvement.
This Plantation Plain House is the anchor of an historic farm property that appears to have been abandoned for some time. It may be associated with the Arnsdorff family but that’s just a guess. It looks like it was maintained until somewhat recently, or at least an effort was made to make cosmetic improvements, such as the paint around the doorway.
A large barn is just around the driveway from the house.
Six over six windows are visible from the side of the house and look to be original. Boxed returns on the gables are another design element. Surveys date the house to the 1870s. Photographs before the vegetation got out of hand suggest an attached wing at the rear. The narrowness of the main section could indicate an earlier date.
This is yet another example of the fine Georgian Cottages that were dominant in the Effingham County landscape throughout the late 19th century. As I may have indicated before, they’re locally described as having the “Salzburger Plan”, or simply called Salzburger Cottages. The style is not endemic to Effingham County, of course, but its dominance here gave rise to that particular identification.
I’m particularly fond of these unpainted examples and while I haven’t been able to identify this one, I would guess it dates to the 1870s or 1880s. A real estate index lists it at as 1920, but I think that’s wrong. It’s well-preserved, but its survival can be attributed to good material and carpentry skills. They just don’t build many houses like this today and that’s a shame because they were so simple and so practical.
When I was photographing the Mars Theatre before its restoration, about ten years ago, some of the nice folks with the City of Springfield suggested I photograph this property, as it’s considered the most historic farmstead in the county. I believe the referrer was a relative of the family. It’s not a public property but I was lucky to find the road to the farm open. As the sign says, this land was first surveyed in May 1800.
The land was first owned by David Reiser (1765-1836), a descendant of one of the early Salzburger families who came to Effingham County from Austria in 1736. Reiser received a grant of 450 acres from the State of Georgia in 1802. The farm, which grew into plantation with the addition of 150 acres, was inherited by David’s son, Christopher F. Reiser (1813-1884). Christopher and his wife had two sons and thirteen daughters.
One of Christopher’s sons, Virgil Herbert Reiser (1852-1918) purchased 100 acres of the family plantation in 1874 and developed his own farm, which became the present-day Reiser-Zoller Farm. After his marriage to Ella Gnann in 1879, they began living on the property. The small house behind the two-story house was their home originally, and all of their children were born here. The principal crop of the farm was corn but Virgil also raised cattle and hogs, which were floated on timber rafts and sold downriver in Savannah. As more crops were raised and timber cleared, the farm concurrently included a turpentine operation.
In 1900, Virgil’s relative, Pierce Edwards, was hired to build the larger farmhouse, needed to accommodate his growing family and farm. Upon Virgil’s death, his son Herbert (1880-1970) inherited the property. He added pecan and grapes, as well as tobacco, and more livestock, to the operation. It continued to grow under his stewardship. Herbert never married, and a nephew, Walter Zoller, became the next owner, and the fifth generation of the family to own the land.
Such an intact historical farm is rare anywhere and the family’s commitment to its preservation is inspiring. It is of statewide importance as a landmark of agricultural heritage.
National Register of Historic Places
I was tempted to simply identify this as a pyramidal farmhouse, as its appearance is defined by its steeply pitched roof and its location on the outskirts of town would suggest it would have had as much an agrarian as domestic purpose. It appears to have been abandoned for a few years but the presence of the wheelchair ramp indicates an older person lived here, perhaps someone who had been here for a long time and knew the history of the place.
Houses of this type are less common than they once were and as they vanish they push me to understand why they were built this way. Did their higher roofs trap more hot air than their lower hip roof cousins? Seems the logical answer. I know they had a central hallway, which in itself was a good conduit of natural air conditioning. They were also built as often in towns as in the country, but more examples today are found in the country.