Built as a Victorian, the Hill House took on its present Neoclassical appearance with a 1909 remodel. The house was designed by Mrs. Hill’s brother-in-law, Newnan architect W. A. Steed. Burwell O. Hill (1856-1918) was a prominent Meriwether County farmer. His son, Obadiah W. Hill, and grandson, J. Render Hill, both served in the Georgia legislature.
National Register of Historic Places
A simple stone pillar with this bronze plaque honors Rabun County native son Logan Edwin Bleckley (3 July 1827-6 March 1907), who served the Supreme Court of Georgia as an Associate and Chief Justice. He was quite the renaissance man with interests far beyond law. Poetry, philosophy, and mathematics were just some of the subjects he pursued in his spare time. Though considered a brilliant jurist, his humility prompted him to feel unqualified to sit on the bench and citing health issues he resigned both his brief tenures on the state’s highest court. Bleckley County is named in his honor.
If you’ve ever driven west on Georgia Highway 37 to Lakeland, chances are you’ve passed by this house and not even noticed it. It was the longtime home of Governor E. D. “Ed” Rivers (1895-1967). From the historical marker placed in 2002 by The Georgia Historical Society*, et al: Eurith Dickinson Rivers was governor of Georgia from 1937 to 1941. He actively supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Program. Rivers’ innovative leadership produced Georgia’s first Department of Public Welfare, free school books, the State Highway Patrol, and modernization of the state highway system. Born in Arkansas, Rivers married Lucile Lashley in 1914 and moved with his family to Milltown (later Lakeland) in 1920 to practice law. He is buried in Lakeland. Built in 1940 on the shores of Banks lake, the ranch style house, designed by Frank Byrd, was relocated to this site in the early 1980s.
Governor Rivers met Miss Lashley while a student at Young Harris College and they were married in 1914. After earning a law degree from LaSalle Extension University in Illinois, the family moved to Cairo, where Rivers served as justice of the peace as well as Cairo City and Grady County Attorney. They then moved to (Milltown) Lakeland where Mr. Rivers became editor of the Lanier County News. Background on Rivers’s political history can be found here.
*- Though the Georgia Historical Society is well aware of the fact, they made no mention of the fact that he was an active and known member of the Ku Klux Klan. In my opinion, this cannot be separated from anything good he may have accomplished.
Built after the Civil War (likely 1870s) by 1st Lieutenant Reuben Walton Clements (1836-1899), this plantation house remains one of Irwinville’s most prominent landmarks. Clements was commissioned 1st Lieutenant of the Irwin Volunteers, Company F, 49th Regiment of Georgia Infantry on 4 March 1862 . Though he resigned on 30 July 1862 due to measles, he re-enlisted as a private in Company H, 4th Regiment of Georgia Cavalry (Clinch’s,) on 2 March 1863 . He surrendered at Tallahassee on 10 May 1865. [Ironically, this was the same day Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured by Union troops on nearby property also owned by Clements. That property today is home to Jefferson Davis Historic Site] R. W. Clements’ son, James Bagley (Jim) Clements, resided here for many years. He was the author of History of Irwin County (Atlanta, Foote & Davies, 1932). Clements was a member of the Irwin County school board, an appointed and elected judge, and subsequently served in the Georgia House of Representatives and the Georgia State Senate.
Judge Thomas Alfred Durrence (1831-1893) was a pioneer of this section of Georgia and an early settler of what would later become Evans County. He was a state representative, served on the board of the Georgia Academy for the Blind, and served on the board of Brewton’s Methodist Church. His antebellum Plantation Plain-style farmhouse, south of Claxton, is in good condition and a nice example of 19th century rural Southern architecture.
Robert and Martha Julianna Dubose Toombs purchased this house in 1837 and lived here until their deaths. The front facade of the house is the most impressive part of the structure, with the colonnade added by Toombs being its defining feature. Robert Toombs was born near Washington on 2 July 1810 and was a child prodigy of sorts, enrolling in Franklin College (now the University of Georgia) at the age of 14. He was expelled from the institution for his indifference to its rules but appeared on campus during graduation ceremonies and made a rousing speech beneath a nearby oak tree, drawing out students from the commencement ceremony. Toombs furthered his education at Union College in New York City and the University of Virginia Law School.
He began practicing law at the age of 18 and was elected to the Georgia House at age 28. Elected to Congress as a Whig in 1844, he later became a Democrat. From 1855-61 he served in the United States Senate. Early in the growing debate over states’ rights, he was a staunch Unionist but by the late 1850s was convinced that secession was eminent. Upon Lincoln’s election in 1860, he telegraphed Georgia leaders, urging that secession be “thundered forth from the ballot-box by the United voice of Georgia.” He soon resigned the Senate and returned to Georgia to participate in the Secession Convention. He had hoped to be chosen President of the Confederate States, but became their first Secretary of State instead.
He left the Confederate Cabinet in 1861 and on 19 July was named a brigadier general, serving in the Peninsula, Northern Virginia and Maryland campaigns. After successful service, he resigned his commission in 1863 and returned to Georgia. He would remain a vocal opponent of Jefferson Davis throughout the remainder of the war but served again as a brigadier general in General Gustavus W. Smith’s Georgia Militia. As the confederacy collapsed, Toombs fled to Havana and then to Paris with General P. G. T. Beauregard. Returning to Georgia in 1867, he remained an ardent supporter of states’ rights and never requested a pardon from the United States, therefore never regaining his right to vote. He was one of the leaders of Georgia’s Constitutional Convention of 1876.
Robert Toombs died on 15 December 1885, an unreconstructed rebel until the end. The home is open for tours and is among Georgia’s most important Civil War historic sites.
National Historic Landmark
Built in the Federal style around 1800, this grand home took on its present appearance with the addition of the colonnade around 1841. Duncan G. Campbell, its first notable resident, was involved in the treaty that removed the Cherokee Indians from Georgia and also for introducing in the Georgia Legislature the first bill for providing for higher education for women. His son, John Archibald Campbell, was born here in 1811. The younger Campbell served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1853 until 1861, when he resigned to become Assistant Secretary of War of the Confederate States of America. After the war he practiced law in New Orleans.
National Register of Historic Places
In 1810, Oliver Hillhouse Prince built the two-story Federal style house that makes up the front section of the present structure. Prince was commissioned by Georgia to lay out the city of Macon in 1822 and sold the house to Augustus Gibson in 1825. Prince later served as a United States Senator. When Alexander Pope, great-grandfather of Washington mayor Edward Pope, bought the Prince house from Augustus Gibson on 8 June 1825, he was apparently already in residence there. Pope then purchased the old 1785 Wilkes County Courthouse, which was still standing opposite the public square where a new courthouse had been built in 1817. Two rooms of the old courthouse building were moved intact and make up the southwest quadrant of the house as it stands today. Other of this lumber was used in part of the construction of the southeast quadrant of the house. This addition left a thirty-inch space between the addition and the original house which accommodates the stairs leading from the circular stairway which existed in the original house. At this time a complete new hip roof was constructed to cover the entire house. Alexander Pope died in 1864 and his widow and children lived in the house until 1873 when the house was sold to William Simpson. Many changes in the house were made by Mr. Simpson and his son, Dr. Robert G. Simpson. Upon Dr. Simpson’s death in 1938, the home was left to his nephew, Dr. Robert G. Stephens, who lived here and practiced medicine until his death in 1974. Mayor Pope bought the house from Emma Stephens Wilson, daughter of Dr. Stephens, in 1977.
National Register of Historic Places
A native of England, Charles Frederick Crisp (1845-1896) came with his entertainer parents to Georgia as a toddler. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was temporarily residing in Luray, Virginia, with his parents, who were performing there in Shakespearean plays. He enlisted in the 10th Virginia Infantry, was commissioned a lieutenant, and served throughout the war, being captured at Spotsylvania Court House in 1864.
Upon his release in 1865, Crisp rejoined his parents at Ellaville, Georgia, and after obtaining a law degree, practiced there. He was a judge of the Southwestern Judicial Circuit and went on to become a prominent member of Congress. During his time in Congress he served as Speaker of the House. He was elected to the Senate a short time before his death, but did not live to take the oath of office. His son, Charles Robert Crisp (1870-1937) was appointed to fill his term and was later elected to the same seat. Speaker Crisp is the namesake of neighboring Crisp County.
Americus Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This historic rural cemetery is the final resting place of one of Georgia’s most important early governors, Jared Irwin.
The three gravestones in the following photographs memorialize Irwin family pioneers: Governor Jared Irwin, General John Lawson Irwin, and Alexander Irwin. The slabs for Jared and John Lawson appear to be later replacements but the headstone for Alexander is original.
