Montevideo is another crossroads community of Elbert County, located just up the road from Rock Branch. While this old store is located in Elbert, most of the settlement is located in Hart County, which is just across the road. In fact, Montevideo Road itself makes up much of the southern border Hart County. Presumably named for the South American city, Montevideo may have originated as an earlier plantation or farm. A post office served the community from 1857-1903.
This historic cemetery near the lost plantation village of Heardmont is best known as the final resting place of Stephen Heard (1741-1815), who served briefly as governor of Georgia, from 1780-1781. It’s also referred to as the Stephen Heard Cemetery, Heardmont Cemetery (historic), and God’s Acre Cemetery. The earliest identified burial dates to 1800. It has been maintained by the Daughters of the American Revolution, though I’m not sure if that arrangement is still in place. It’s very well maintained. A granite marker near the entrance states: John W. McCalla, husband of Mary Allen McCalla, daughter of Singleton W. Allen*, deeded ten acres more or less, to the order of the “Daughters of the American Revolution” on November 24, 1903. The northeast corner, known as Heardmont Cemetery and church lot, to be reserved for burying purposes of the family members and relatives of Singleton W. Allen. *-Singleton Walthall Allen, Sr. (1793-1853), married Jane Lanier Heard, daughter of Stephen Heard.
A second generation Irish American from Hanover County, Virginia, Heard was the son of John Heard 1717-1788), and Bridgett Carroll (1719-1784). He set aside his schooling in the 1750s, and along with several of his brothers, joined George Washington’s Virginia regiment in the French and Indian War. He was promoted to captain by the future president and the men maintained a lifelong friendship.
He and his family came to Georgia in 1759, and in 1766 was the beneficiary of a 150-acre land grant for service rendered during the French and Indian War. Tensions remained high among the British settlers and the Creek and Cherokee peoples, and after both tribes signed the Treaty of Augusta in 1773, land north of the Little River was opened to settlement. To help protect new settlers from Native American incursions, Heard and his brother Barnard constructed Fort Heard, at present-day Washington, in 1774. Around the same time, Stephen and Barnard, along with their father, established another fort, known as Heard’s Fort, seven miles north of Fort Heard near Fishing Creek.
The Heards were patriots (Whigs) and were part of a larger group of rebels that included Nancy Hart, Elijah Clarke, and John Dooly. Far from being embraced by their fellow settlers, these colonists were the target of British sympathizers, known as Tories. As the British occupied Georgia, the Tories committed widespread acts of violence, culminating for Stephen Heard in the loss of his wife, Jane Germany, and their adopted daughter. The Tories invaded the Heard property and forced the women outside and into the snow. They later died of exposure.
His resolve greater than ever, Stephen Heard participated in the Battle of Kettle Creek on 14 February 1779. The battle was a major setback for the British in northeast Georgia, as only 270 of a force of 600 survived, but Tories continued to create chaos in the area. During one such campaign, Heard was captured and taken as a prisoner to Fort Cornwallis in Augusta. Legend holds that he was saved by one of his slaves, Mammy Kate.
Heard was appointed governor by the executive council of the House of Assembly on 24 May 1780 and served just over a year, departing the office on 18 August 1781. Clay Ouzts writes: “During his term, the British, who had overrun most of the state, were in control of its principal cities, and the backcountry was in a state of anarchy. Heard’s Fort functioned temporarily as Georgia’s capitol, but raids by Tories and Indians forced Heard and the council to move about continually to avoid capture by the British.“
After the Revolutionary War, Heard was granted nearly 7000 acres. He built Heardmont about 30 miles north of Washington on land which became part of Elbert County in 1790. He married Elizabeth Darden (1765-1848), a great niece of George Washington according to Findagrave, and they had nine children. Heard was an early justice of Elbert County, a delegate at the state constitutional convention of 1795, and a member of the committee that laid out the county seat of Elberton in 1803. He died at Heardmont on 15 November 1815. Heard County is named for him.
This house has caught my eye for many years when passing through the forgotten village once known as Eudora, and I finally stopped and made a photograph a few days ago. As long as I can remember, it’s been overgrown. Eudora means “generous gifts” in Greek, and Ken Krakow’s Georgia Place-Names suggests that was the origin of the name. The community is certainly situated among some of the most beautiful and productive countryside in Jasper County. While it had a post office from 1874-1902, Eudora nearly vanished from memory, but according to a 31 October 2013 article in the Monticello News, residents were proud of its history and wanted signs placed along the highway to signal its presence. [It is also sometimes referred to as Prospect, for the old Prospect Methodist Church.] A planned railroad, known as the Monticello, Eudora, and Social Circle, was set to come through the area in 1884, but was routed toward Madison instead. Perhaps this was a slight at the time, but 140 years later, the people of this community are still proud of their history and have made sure the name is remembered.
Strouds is named for the family of Levi Stroud, Sr. (1787-1888), a pioneer settler of the area. Strouds was born in Burke County, grew up mostly in Hancock County, and after marrying his cousin Frances “Fannie” Haygood (1792-1883) in Clarke County in 1807, moved to Monroe County.
It’s unclear when the name Strouds was officially conferred upon the community. The Strouds post office was open from 1886-1905. Very little remains today.
This house was altered in the 1940s by the addition of the brick piers and square columns. It’s probable that the projecting diagonal foyer at the right was added at that time, as well.
This community was first known as Frankville but was renamed Berner in 1896, for Col. Robert Lee Berner (1854-1922) of Forsyth. Berner served in the Spanish-American War, practiced law, was president of the Georgia senate, ran unsuccessfully for governor, and was instrumental in the construction of Macon’s Terminal Station.
It’s hard to imagine considering the isolation of this place today, but the post office remained in operation until 1957. Now, it appears to be a true ghost town.
This interesting structure stands [barely] behind a larger collapsed structure. I believe it had some public use, perhaps as an office.
I was looking for the old Tibet voting precinct when I saw this. It’s a great old vernacular house of a style once very common near the coast but quickly vanishing. A post office at Tibet [prounounced tib-it, not tuh-bet] operated from 1900-1914. It was located in Liberty County until the establishment of Long County in 1920. The name may have originated with a plantation but by the time it had a post office, it was likely a turpentine village.
Ebenezer Baptist Church, one of the oldest congregations in Wilkes County, was established in 1787. In papers held by the University of Georgia, photographer Hubert Bond gave 1790 as the construction date of the church but a more recent source suggests 1904. It is possible that parts of the earlier structure were incorporated into this one, and, considering its Greek Revival style, it may have antebellum origins.
The church is the last remaining public landmark of the historic community of Aonia, which had a post office from 1843-1918.
The New Lois Consolidated School opened in 1933 to serve students in southern Berrien County. It replaced the Old Lois School. I’ve had trouble locating much information about the Lois community, but it had a post office between 1882 and 1904.
Bryan Shaw writes: The community of the New Lois School was named for the daughter of the first postmaster. It was a sawmill and shingle mill town with a mill pond created by a wooden planked dam. The mill was built by William E. Connell, Sr. Lois also had a mercantile store, a gristmill, a hardware store, a church, and of course a two room school house. The 1908 Hudgins Co. Berrien County map shows the school district called Lois. Most of the children of the village and surrounding farms attended the school. A rail road line from Cecil once reached as far as Lois, until the dam failed to hold enough water back to operate the shingle mill and the gristmill. The town site eventually was taken over by the Georgia landscape, and only a couple of deteriorated residential structures exist today. The Lois School operated until 1933, when Berrien County consolidated the one and two room schools into the New Lois Consolidated School. The original campus was much larger than the remaining structure today. The auditorium and lunch room is all that remains and has served as the assembly hall for the New Lois Community for several decades. If you would like to learn more of the Old Lois townsite, you may wish to view the PowerPoint video titled “Ghost Towns of Berrien—Episode 1” produced by the Berrien Historical Foundation...
The old schoolhouse serves as the New Lois community center today.