This homes was built for Tennille merchant and Mayor, Thomas W. Smith, whose family lived here for over 85 years. The National Register nomination form notes: …the Thomas W. Smith House typifies Choate’s residential architectural designs during the early years of his architectural career. Charles E. Choate (1865-1929) was a minister-architect prolific in Georgia and adjacent states at the turn of the last century; the greatest concentration of his work can be found in the Tennille-Sandersville area.
Built by J. L. Huggins for Sam and Mary Amanda Way, this is one of several outstanding Victorians in Hawkinsville’s residential historic district. Sam Way served as mayor of Hawkinsville and later as a Georgia State Representative.
Peter Lamar (1789-1847), the first owner of this house, was one of the pioneer settlers of Lincolnton. He served as a State Representative for the terms of 1811 and 1812 and was the commissioner of Lincolnton when it was established in 1817. From 1816-1834 he was Clerk of the Superior Court of Lincoln County and was a State Senator from 1834-1838. He also served as a justice of the Inferior Court from 1837-1844, and as a captain of the local militia.
This was the home of Columbus Wesley Fulwood, for whom Tifton’s large public park is named. Self-taught in the practice of law, Fulwood opened the first firm in Tifton and served several terms as mayor. It is presently an apartment house.
Tifton Residential Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This Tuscan-inspired Victorian is one of the most architecturally interesting houses in the Orange Street neighborhood and a well-loved Macon landmark. It was built by Judge Clifford Anderson, who practiced law with Sidney Lanier’s father Robert for a time in Macon. He was also the brother of Sidney Lanier’s mother Mary Jane. In 1846, Anderson served as the first president of the Macon chapter of the YMCA. Anderson was a member of the Confederate Congress and a captain in the Floyd Rifles. He served several terms in the state legislature after the war and also served as state Attorney General.
Also known as the Judge Asa Holt House, for its first owner, the Cannonball House is one of Macon’s most popular historic sites. It’s believed to have been designed and built by Elam Alexander, prominent builder/architect of antebellum Macon, though there isn’t consensus on this claim. Of numerous outbuildings once present on the property, a brick kitchen and servants’ quarters remain.
The house received its name after being struck by a cannonball during the Battle of Dunlap Hill on 30 July 1864. Lore suggests that forces under the command of Union General George Stoneman were attempting to strike the nearby Hay House but miscalculated. The ball struck the sand sidewalk in front of the house, passed through the second column from the left of the gallery and entered the parlor over a window, landing unexploded in the hallway. Mrs. Holt displayed the cannonball on her dining room table until giving it to the Macon Volunteers in defense of the city. Judge Holt’s descendants lived in the house until 1963.
It’s operated today as a house museum by the Friends of the Cannonball House.
James Gordon and his two brothers came to Chickamauga, then known as Crawfish Springs, from Gwinnett County in 1836. In 1840, James began construction of this home [employing slave labor and using bricks made on site] to serve as the centerpiece of his 2500-acre plantation. The site was of local importance, as the Cherokee Courthouse was located on the grounds prior to displacement. [It was originally executed in the Greek Revival style; the addition of the massive portico and entablature in a 1900 remodel gave it its present Neoclassical appearance].
Gordon’s son Clark was elected commanding officer of Company D, First Georgia Volunteer Infantry, organized in 1862. During the Battle of Chickamauga the home served as temporary headquarters of Union Major General William Rosecrans, Army of the Cumberland [16-19 September 1863]. It also served as a field hospital [18-20 September 1863] under the command of Medical Surgeon R. G. Bogue, treating both Union and Confederate casualties. In 1889, 14,000 veterans of the battle held a reunion on the grounds known as the Blue-Gray Barbeque. The idea to establish the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park had its origins at the barbeque, significantly the first Civil War park in the United States to be protected through preservation.
Upon the death of James and Sarah Gordon, the home passed to their daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband, James Lee. The next owner was their son, Gordon Lee, a United States Congressman [1904-1927], and his wife, Olive. Lee stipulated in his will that if no family member took on the property for twenty years that it would become the property of the City of Chickamauga and this happened in 1947. It was sold to Dr. Frank Green in 1974. Dr. Green restored the house and grounds with great attention to historical accuracy. In 2007 it was purchased by the City of Chickamauga, which now operates a museum on the site.
This saddlebag house is the last surviving of six slave dwellings on the property. Brick saddlebags are a very rare vernacular form in Georgia.
Even if you don’t have the time to visit all the Civil War sites in the area, take the time to walk the wonderful grounds of the Gordon-Lee Mansion. Operated by the Friends of the Gordon-Lee Mansion in conjunction with the City of Chickamauga, it’s a wonderful green space and historic site.
Designed by Spencer Stewart Marsh (1799-1875) around the time of LaFayette’s founding, this was home to his family and their descendants until 1989. It’s also referred to as the Marsh-Warthen House. Spencer Marsh was born in Chatham County, North Carolina, and married Ruth (Rutha) Terrell Brantley in 1824. They first migrated to Covington, Georgia, around 1833, and then to Walker County. He was a justice of the Inferior Court and a state senator and Walker County’s wealthiest and most prominent citizen with farming and real estate interests all over the area. He was also, along with Andrew P. Allgood and and William K. Briers, a founder of the Trion Factory [in Chattooga County], said to be the first cotton mill in Northwest Georgia, in 1845. It was later known as Marsh & Allgood. During the Civil War, the Marshes sought refuge in Cassville.
Marsh’s daughter, Sarah Adaline, married Nathaniel Greene Warthen in 1859. Due to the large presence of Union troops in Northwest Georgia, the young couple relocated to the relatively safer Warthen homeplace in Warthen, Washington County at the height of the war. Afterwards they returned to LaFayette and also resided here with Sarah’s family.
To enhance the interpretation of the African-American experience at the Marsh House, a log cabin has been moved here and reconstructed to replicate what a slave dwelling would have looked like before the Civil War. This cabin is actually about a hundred years old and was an outbuilding located on another property. It was donated to the Marsh House by Breck Parker.
It’s a near certainty that Spencer Marsh’s slaves were responsible for the construction of the house. He owned 12 in 1850. One of them, 16-year-old Wiley Marsh, was Spencer’s son according to widely accepted oral history. [Interestingly, Wiley Marsh is mentioned on a Department of the Interior marker honoring the African-American presence on the property but it doesn’t note that he was Marsh’s son]. Built in the Greek Revival style popular by 1840, the house was expanded between 1895-10 by Marsh’s grandson, Spencer Marsh Warthen, who also added minimal Colonial Revival features, including the balustrade, around 1935. Almost every architectural element and update of the house has been extensively catalogued. Addie Augusta Wert, great-granddaughter of Spencer Marsh, was the last family member to reside here, removing to a nursing home in 1989. Patrick and Donna Clements bought the house from the estate in 1992 and sold it to the Walker County Historical Society in 2003. The Marsh House of LaFayette is now operated as a museum, with limited hours.
This is an abridged version of Dan H. Latham, Jr., and Beverly Foster’s excellent history of this house viewable on the National Register nomination form. It’s a fascinating read, especially in regards to some of the Civil War associations of the house and family, as well as the background on Wiley Marsh, Spencer’s “mulatto” son.
Originally, this house was a small cottage built by Judge Hiram Warner (1802-1881) in 1836. Judge Warner came to Georgia from Massachusetts in 1822 and eventually became Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. Around 1869 Judge Warner’s daughter, Mary Jane Warner Hill, added another structure to the extant one, creating a two-story house. The Greek Revival appearance likely dates to this time. The Louie Cleveland Clark family purchased the house in 1934. The property has long been known as Clarkland Farms and is now an event venue.
