The Osprey Mill was built on the north side of the Yellow River, west of downtown Porterdale. It was the second mill build in the modern era and with a large complex of supporting structures, was the largest mill in town. I believe it was the last of the three, still in operation, and while originally similar in appearance to the Porterdale and Welaunee Mills, was modernized at some point to accommodate changing work requirements.
Porterdale Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Built as a gift to the people of Porterdale by James H. Porter in memory of his father and Porterdale founder Oliver Saffold Porter (1836-1914), the Porter Memorial Gym was one of the main gathering places in the community until the decline of the mills. It was designed by one of Georgia’s first female architects, Ellamae Ellis League.
Though a 2005 fire destroyed much of the structure and collapsed the roof, the foundation and walls remain were re-enforced and the site is occasionally used for gatherings and community events.
Porterdale Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
As evident in this photograph, and the one below, the Julia A. Porter Church commands a high point in downtown Porterdale, dominating the skyline when seen from the Yellow River bridge.
According to a church history, Rev. Firley Baum was appointed the first pastor of the “Porterdale Mission” by the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1903. 35 charter members joined the Porterdale Church and first met in the Community Building, and from 1917 until the construction of the present structure, the met in the Porterdale School. Rev. J. J. Mize led a capital campaign for the construction of the new church, which was completed in 1925. James Hyde Porter (1873-1949) was the largest benefactor and asked only that the church be named for his mother, Julia Antoinette McCracken Porter (1838-1926), which it was. Mrs. Porter was known for her charitable work within the mill community and was turned the first shovel of dirt and was present at the dedication. One source states she died a year later but her gravestone records the date as 1926. Her charitable works continue not only within the congregation but through a foundation that still sustains the community.
Porterdale Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The Welaunee Inn originally served as housing for unmarried female employees of the Welaunee Mill, essentially a dormitory. Built in the Tudor Revival style in 1923 [some sources date it to 1920], it had 26 rooms. By the 1950s it was often referred to as the Village Inn, or simply, the Inn. It was sold by the mill in 1966. It’s a massive building, located on Broad Street near the center of town, and has rear-facing wings at either end. It’s still in good condition and though empty at present, has so much potential.
It’s best remembered today not as a hotel but, as Darrell Huckaby wrote in the Newton Community Magazine, “…the Center of Georgia’s Culinary Universe”. He noted, “In the 1950s and into the 1960s, Mrs. Effie Boyd served up some of the best Southern cooking this side of Heaven, from fried chicken and baked ham to roast turkey and country fried steak.” He recalled that Brown’s Guide to Georgia, the state’s periodical travel bible for many years, christened it the state’s best meat-and-three year after year after year. He also said that mill workers didn’t get lunch breaks during the week but folks from “town”, i.e. Covington, were faithful patrons. On Sundays, he said, people from everywhere would line up for hours to sample her Southern favorites. And, “If you have all those vegetables, you have to have cornbread and biscuits with which to sop. Effie Boyd’s biscuits were as good as anybody’s biscuits who ever sifted flour, and her cornbread came in pones, muffins or sticks, depending on the day of the week and her mood.”
Porterdale Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Cottage of Kitty Andrew, Circa 1844, Old Church, Oxford
This saddlebag cottage was originally located a few lots away behind the home of James Osgood Andrew, a Methodist bishop in Oxford, and has been moved four times prior to finally landing at Old Church. It was the dwelling of an enslaved woman named Kitty, who was inherited by the bishop around the time he entered the episcopacy, and survives as a tangible symbol of the Missional Split (Schism) of 1844 that occurred between Northern and Southern Methodists, since the ownership of Kitty was at the center of the controversy. According to her cenotaph at Salem Campground, Kitty was a slave girl bequeathed to Bishop James O. Andrew by a Mrs. Powers of Augusta, Georgia, in her will when Kitty was 12 years of age, with the stipulation that when she was 19 years of age, she was to be given her freedom and sent to Liberia.
Northern clergyman insisted that bishops could not own slaves and demanded Andrew’s resignation. Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Emory’s president at the time and an enslaver himself, supported Bishop Andrew. The story put forth is that Longstreet and Professor George W. Lane interviewed Kitty and gave her the option of emancipation, which she refused, unwilling to be sent to Liberia. The bishop had this cottage built for her and pledged that she would thereafter live “as free as I am”. Andrew was known for ministering to slaves but even this and his commitment to allowing Kitty to live free was met with suspicion by Northern clergy.
Upon the death of his first wife, Bishop Andrew inherited a young enslaved boy. He then married a widow who owned over a dozen slaves. With all this in mind, and unwilling to compromise, the southern churches split from their northern peers in 1845 and formed the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
Kitty later married a man named Nathan Shell and left the cottage but little else is known about her later life. Findagrave records her date of birth as 1822, though her date of death or even whereabouts remain unknown or unconfirmed.
Oxford Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This antebellum cottage was built by Dr. Henry Gaither but is most associated with a young woman purported to be a spy for the Confederacy, Izora “Zora” Fair, and is even referred to as the Zora Fair Cottage based upon this history. The history itself may be apocryphal or embellished, however. It posits that while Zora was a refugee from war-ravaged South Carolina, she disguised herself as a mulatto with crushed walnut hulls, sneaked into General Sherman’s headquarters, and overheard his plans for the March to Sea. When she tried to pass this information to Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, it was intercepted by Union soldiers, and she hid out in the attic of this house.
Considering that the most recent sources for this information were published in the 1910s, they must be held to some scrutiny, especially since they were published by partisan historians. There must be something to the story; perhaps a more objective modern researcher can put it all together.
Oxford Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This historic structure, built in 1905, originally served as the administration building of Young’s Female College. According to Wikipedia, Young’s Female College was established in 1869, and had 15 teachers and 115 students in 1906. It was purchased in 1939 by the Rolt family and repurposed as the Rosemary Inn, a boarding house and hotel catering to the wealthy Northerners who spent their winters in Thomasville. Even with its current use as condominiums, it retains its original appearance.
Dawson Street Residential Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Patt Gunn (second from right) and friends pose with the newly revealed Taylor Square sign
Mayor Van Johnson summed up Saturday’s dedication of Taylor Square, noting that “We’re not rewriting history…and we’re not making history. We’re making sense.”
For the first time in its nearly 300 year history, one of Savannah’s signature squares has been named for a woman, and an African-American. A large and festive crowd numbering in the hundreds was on hand on Saturday to see the dedication of Taylor Square, formerly known as Calhoun Square. Its previous namesake, vice-president John C. Calhoun, was a fierce advocate of slavery.
Susannah “Susie” Baker King Taylor (1848-1912) Courtesy Library of Congress
Its new namesake, Susannah “Susie” Baker King Taylor, was born into slavery and went on to become the first African-American nurse in the U. S. military and the only African-American woman to publish a memoir of her Civil War service (Reminisces of My Life in Camp). She was also a staunch advocate of creating educational opportunities for Black children and is believed to be the first Black teacher to openly teach African-Americans in Georgia. She established two schools in Savannah and another in Liberty County.
Savannah City Manager Joseph Melder introduced the event.
Reverend Jamie Maury of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia led the ceremony with a prayer.
Patt Gunn
Patt Gunn, of the Susie King Taylor Center for Jubilee, who with Rosalyn Rouse spearheaded the effort to rename the square, thanked those in the neighborhood for their support. She also made references to her Gullah Geechee roots.
Donald Lovett
Donald Lovett, chairman of the Liberty County commission, spoke of Mrs. Taylor’s Liberty County origins.
Music was provided by the Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church choir.
Hermina Glass-Hill
Hermina Glass-Hill, who leads the Susie King Taylor Women’s Institute and Ecology Center in Midway, is the foremost authority on Mrs. Taylor’s life. She noted, “I can assure you that this revolution of unity in the city of Savannah…would certainly make her [Mrs. Baker] proud.”
Mayor Van Johnson
Mayor Johnson described the effort to rename the park, thanking those who led the effort and countless volunteers.
Dr. Bertice Berry
Dr. Bertice Berry inspired the crowd.
Rev. Ben Martin
Rev. Ben Martin is the senior pastor at Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church, which faces Taylor Square. He noted that the congregation was proud of the work done here.
The city hosted an all-day celebration in the square, with activities throughout the day.
This was a source of pride for the historic district.
Letha Moore (r) and Gena Taylor, who serves as Executive Director of the Greenbriar Children’s Center
I was honored to meet Letha Moore and even let her take my picture. She told me that she’s the unofficial photographer for her church.
People of all generations took in the festivities.
Hermina Glass-Hill poses with friends.
Van Johnson, Edna Jackson, Otis Johnson
Here, Mayor Van Johnson prepares to reveal the new sign, while former mayors Edna Jackson and Otis Johnson look on.
Savannah Historic District, National Historic Landmark
Lena Baker Mugshot, Georgia State Prison, Reidsville, 2-23-1945. Public Domain. No Known Restrictions. Via Wikipedia.
The mugshot above is a haunting reminder of the failures and atrocities of the Jim Crow government that dominated Georgia well into the 1960s. Made at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville just ten days before Lena Baker became the only woman to be executed in Georgia’s electric chair, it instills a sense of fear and sadness. This was, ultimately, a legal lynching.
Lena Baker was born near Cuthbert in 1900 to a family of sharecroppers and followed the typical employment pattern of black women of her time, working as a maid for little pay for middle class white families in order to support her three children. She was later forced into a sexual relationship with an elderly white employer, Ernest B. Knight. It was well-known and frowned upon throughout the county. When Knight realized that Ms. Baker was determined to end the relationship he locked her in his gristmill, as he had done many times before. When she tried to escape, they “tussled” over his pistol which fired and killed him. She immediately turned herself in and claimed the shooting was in self-defense. She also admitted that she drank alcohol with him, but also, not by choice. Not surprisingly, the all-male, all-white jury in the ensuing sham trial found Ms. Baker guilty of capital murder and sentenced her to death. This is likely due to the fact that the family of Ernest Knight was embarrassed by the breach of social order the case represented, even though Knight’s proclivities were already well known. It was a neat way, on the part of a white family, to put this sorry episode to rest at the expense of a woman’s life. She was executed at Reidsville on 5 March 1945 and buried at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church near Cuthbert. Her last words were: “What I done, I did in self-defense or I would have been killed myself. Where I was, I could not overcome it…I am ready to meet my God.”
The first facility in South Georgia where black doctors, nurses, and pharmacists could train, practice, and serve people of color, the Americus Colored Hospital was established by Dr. William Stuart Prather (1868-1941), a white physician who was well aware of the health care needs of this under-served community. He bought the property and built this state-of-the-art facility, with the cooperation and contributions of the Americus Negro Business League and the Americus Junior Welfare League.
According to the Americus-Sumter County Movement Remembered Committee (ASMRC), 33 doctors, 2 dentists, 2 pharmacists, 6 registered nurses, and 18 nursing professionals were associated with the hospital. The resulting black middle class that grew out of this experiment was one of the most vibrant in the state; in fact, Americus-Sumter County had more black professionals and landowners than anywhere else in Georgia from the 1920s-1942.
Though it faced numerous difficulties, it was an important resource for the African-American community until it closed in 1953. At that time, Sumter Regional Hospital opened its doors, and because it used federal funds via the Hill-Burton Act, couldn’t discriminate by race. The act didn’t mandate desegregation, however, and Sumter Regional was racially compartmentalized. Since no black doctors were hired, much of the black middle class left Americus, resulting in a negative economic impact. The Americus Chapter of the City Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, purchased the Colored Hospital building and used it as a nursery and youth center. During the Civil Rights Movement, it also served as a Freedom School and Training Center.
