Construction of the Hinesville Shaw Rosenwald School, as it was originally known, began in 1930 and was completed in 1931, fulfilling the goal of the Rosenwald Fund to provide state-of-the-art schools to black children in the segregated Jim Crow South who otherwise would not have had access to quality education. The Trustees of the Hinesville Colored Schools (Alonzo Simpson, J. H. Gause, and Robert Duggan) helped secure the local funding required to match the gift of the Rosenwald Fund.
The Rosenwald School was originally a comprehensive facility housing grades 1-11. I’m unsure when it became an elementary school, but the addition of a wing to the original Rosenwald structure, and a later separate building, were likely constructed during the era of Equalization Schools (1950s). It has long been known as the Hineshaw School/Hineshaw Elementary School. Neighborhood resident and businesswoman Rebecca Hargrove Shipman sold property adjacent to the school for the nominal fee of $1 to ensure street access to the campus. Two of those streets bear her name today, Rebecca Street and Shipman Avenue. Trustee J. H. Gause was also honored with a street bearing his name.
The campus remained in use in one form or another until the early 2000s but has been abandoned for many years. Neglect and storm damage have endangered the building and immediate stabilization is needed. It has recently been announced that Hinesville Downtown Development Authority is planning to restore the Rosenwald School.
Savannah First African Baptist Church was organized in 1773 and built this historic chapel in 1859. It is one of the oldest Black congregations in North America.
The following history, shared from their website, notes: “First African Baptist Church (FABC) was organized in 1773 under the leadership of Reverend George Leile. The 1773 organization date for the church makes it clear that FABC is older than the United States (1776). In May of 1775 Rev. Leile was ordained as the pastor and December of 1777 the church was officially constituted as a body of organized believers. Four converts Rev. Andrew Bryan, his wife, Hannah Bryan, Kate Hogg, and Hagar Simpson would form a part of the nucleus of First African Baptist Church’s early membership.”
“In 1782, rather than risk reenslavement, Pastor Leile left with the British when Savannah was evacuated and migrated to Jamaica. He became the first American missionary, 30 years before Adoniram Judson left for Burma. He was also the first Baptist missionary in Jamaica.”
“Under the leadership of the 3rd Pastor Reverend Andrew C. Marshall, the congregation obtained the property where the present sanctuary stands. Reverend Marshall also organized the first black Sunday School in North America and changed the name of the church from “First Colored Baptist” to “First African Baptist”. The sanctuary was completed in 1859 under the direction of the 4th Pastor, Reverend William J. Campbell.”
“March Haynes, a deacon of the church, enlisted in the Civil War on the Union side and did valiant service. He was active in helping captive Africans to escape to the Union side, where they enjoyed freedom. Deacon Haynes was an unsung hero of the movement of freedom known popularly as the “Underground Railroad”.”
“First African Baptist Church has been a place of leadership and service since its inception. Reverend Emmanuel King Love, 6th Pastor, led the movement to establish Savannah State University, formerly known as Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth. Rev. Love also played a big role in the establishment of Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA; Paine College in Augusta, GA.”
Zion Baptist Church was established in 1899 and was an important part of the African-American community of lower Bryan County for half of the 20th century. It originated as a wood frame prayer house. Prayer houses, [also known as praise houses], which first appeared on plantations, were characteristic landmarks of the Gullah-Geechee communities that dominated the Georgia Coast before the Great Migration. Few have survived.
According to Eugene Harris, who attended this church in his youth, the present structure was built circa 1950. Church members who worked in the cement business chose to rebuild with cinderblock for the longevity the material would provide. By this time, however, the congregation was dwindling. This quaint little building was abandoned in the early 1960s. In 2019, Mr. Harris, who returned to Richmond Hill after service in the Air Force, decided to restore the prayer house, which was overgrown with weeds and brush and in deteriorating condition. He took on the project as a one-man job but soon got assistance from the community, who raised nearly $5000 and contributed countless hours and materials to the effort. It is a living monument to the culture it represents, ultimately a place for prayer and quite reflection. And it’s proof that one man’s vision can save a piece of overlooked history for everyone to appreciate.
Tolomato Island is one of the historical wonders of Coastal Georgia, located just north of Darien, though it is little-known outside the area. Archaeologists have determined, through examination of pottery and shell middens, that indigenous peoples, Swift Creek and Guale-Tolomato, were living in the area as early as 2000 BCE and thrived until at least the 1600s.
A Spanish Catholic mission known as Our Lady of Guadeloupe of Tolomato, may have been established here in the late 1500s, though details of this endeavor are in dispute. One early source of this claim is John Tate Lanning’s 1935 book, The Spanish Missions of Georgia, which over time has been proven to be academically questionable, at best, and has led to serious debate over any of the details of European intrusion into the area. It is known that there was a similarly named mission near St. Augustine in the early 1600s, as well, further confusing the matter.
What is known for sure is that the site today is home to the ruins of one of Georgia’s earliest industrial endeavors. Though surrounded by a quiet community of modern homes, the ruins are well-preserved and considered an important resource by the people of Tolomato Island. Locally, the area was originally known as “The Thicket”.
The historic marker on nearby Georgia Highway 99 reads: “The Thicket”: Sugar Mill-Rum Distillery Ruins–On the banks of Carnochan Creek, a short distance East of here, are the ruins of a famous Sugar Mill and Rum Distillery operated early in the 19th century. These buildings, constructed of tabby by William Carnochan on his huge sugar plantation at “The Thicket,” followed closely plans laid out by Thomas Spalding of Sapelo. The sugar works and rum distillery were operated successfully on a commercial scale until 1824, when a hurricane tore off the roof and upper story of the mill and cane barn, and destroyed other buildings. What this marker fails to mention is that the success of this operation was dependent on the labor of enslaved people. Prominent among the ruins are slave dwellings and other structures related to Carnochan’s operation.
The ruins are relatively intact and are a significant archaeological resource.
Repairs were apparently made in the 1920s, as graffiti on the patchwork suggests. The work above is signed “J. O. V. 1926”.
The people of Tolomato Island should be commended for preserving and keeping a watchful eye over this relic of early Georgia.
It should go without saying, but if you visit, take only pictures and tread lightly.
Vegetation has grown inside the ruins, but the durability of tabby as a building material is evident in these images.
Like the slave dwellings and the distillery, the ruins of the sugar mill have survived for over 200 years and are evidence of some of Georgia’s first industrial efforts.
These structures were built when John Adams was the president of the United States.
It will take many years for archaeologist and historians to come to a conclusion, if they ever reach one, regarding the Spanish mission story, but the story of William Carnochan is told in these ruins.
It is a microcosm of the earliest part of Georgia’s story, and is quite amazing.
Friends from Darien have just called to tell me that the historic Huston House, built on Butler Island in 1927, is engulfed in flames. The Huston House is a landmark of McIntosh County and Highway 17, the Georgia home of Col. Tillinghast L’Hommedieu (T.L.) Huston, a part owner of the New York Yankees. Babe Ruth spent time at this house during that era.
Before Huston’s association, the Butler family owned this land from at least 1790 until 1923. Their rice plantation was dependent on the labor of as many as 500 enslaved people at its peak. Multiple generations of families were chained to this land and many were buried here, as well. As the plantation declined, most of the Butler enslaved were sold at a Savannah racetrack between 2-3 March 1859, in what came to be known as the Weeping Time. Their sale to disparate buyers ensured that most would never see each other again.
In recent years, ownership has shifted between state and local sources and its future has been uncertain.
Credit Hill is another place name along the coast whose origin was a bit of mystery to me. I initially thought it to be a reference to a turpentine or timber commissary, but in his excellent history of McIntosh County, Buddy Sullivan writes: Credit Hill gets its name from the First Credit Hill Baptist Church…the First Credit Hill Baptist Church property was purchased ca. 1865 by a group living in the Free Castle Swamp area to establish the church. The property was sold to the group, on “credit,” for the sum of five dollars. Hence the name, Credit Hill…[Though he doesn’t mention it, the church is African-American, and therefore must have been established by newly freed enslaved men and women.]
Credit was an apt description, but there’s really no hill in sight. And there was never a post office here, either.
Besides two churches, First and Second Credit Hill Baptist, there’s nothing else in this lost community, besides a road bearing the name, to signify there was ever a settlement here.
*-This house is usually obscured by vegetation but is located at the center of Credit Hill. The type is a variation of the pyramidal cottage, sometimes referred to as a hip-roof cottage.
Sapelo residents and natives disembarking the ferry Katie Underwood with tourists, 2012.
One of the first things the late Cornelia Walker Bailey told me in 2012 when I met her on my first of many trips to Sapelo Island was that she had seen plans dating back to the late 1960s to build a causeway from mainland McIntosh County to the island her people had inhabited for nearly 200 years. She told me she was glad I could see her island but I could tell she was on the fence about tourism to the island. On one hand, it was a source of income for her family, but it wasn’t that simple, she said. Cornelia was the resident griot, or storyteller, of Sapelo and she was very protective of this magical place. Her book God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man was my guide to understanding a little about the place I was lucky enough to visit, thanks to the generosity of my late friend Sonny DeSoto. Very few people have been to this isolated enclave of Geechee culture and if you are lucky enough to have been, you have an immediate appreciation and understanding of the need to keep it as it has always been. It’s magical in its isolation, its lack of modern convenience, and most of all, in the spirit of the people.
I don’t know about any causeway plans as of this moment, but what I do know is that the McIntosh County Commission has been raising property taxes for at least the last 8 years, creating a hardship for the community of Hogg Hummock [aka Hog Hammock] and while people on and off the island have been protesting this, it’s fallen on deaf ears. The exorbitant property valuations have coincided with the building of large modern vacation homes, interspersed among the small vernacular cottages that have defined the community over time. The desire now, and what the commission just approved by a vote of 3-2, is for many more of these unwelcome homes to be built by the wealthy few who can afford them. With values of the majority of these properties sure to be north of a million dollars, the taxes for people on the island will only get higher and therefore untenable. A real concern is that the county will eventually condemn properties for those longtime residents who can’t meet the growing tax burden and flip those properties to eager developers who care nothing about the history of this place. Only time will tell.
The people of Sapelo are very independent and very resourceful, but this is a problem that those skills may not be able to solve. I understand that part of this is due to the fact that descendants and heirs are willingly selling their property here, so that has to be considered, but to those who wish to remain here, not in the shadow of some short-term-rental McMansion, there should be a covenant that allows them to pay the rates of taxes they’ve always paid. Ultimately, no development would be the ideal scenario, but short of stopping that, which seems impossible now, there must be a compromise. Please share your thoughts with the McIntosh County Commission, or even the Governor’s Office, if you’re so inclined. Apparently, the governor spends time on the island, so I’m sure he’s aware of these issues.
This historic African-American congregation near Cox was established in the 1890s but that’s all the information I’ve been able to locate so far. I’m guessing there was an earlier Woodland Church, hence the name.
When I heard in 2018 that the Adam Strain Building was slated for likely demolition, I felt anger, impending loss, and a sense of betrayal that a building with so many historical connections dating back at least 200 years could simply be allowed to go out like that. Despite being burned during the Civil War, it survived to become an unofficial symbol of Darien.
I was very aware of its endangered state, from photographs I made as early as 2009, a year after the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation brought attention to it by naming it a Place in Peril. And Darien friends who reached out over the years were cautiously optimistic, but mostly fearful, for what its future held.
I got an exciting message from one of those friends, Kit Stebbins Sutherland, in 2020. She was still cautiously optimistic, but said that the impossible had happened and the Adam Strain Building was going to be saved. Kit grew up in Darien with a mother who spent years creating an amazing photographic archive of its historic buildings and coastal landmarks, so her interest in her hometown is palpable. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Fast forward to the present and the restoration is in full swing. Milan and Marion Savic of Marietta are the new owners of the Adam Strain Building and the circa 1898 Bank of Darien [pink building to immediate left of Strain Building] and are doing everything right. They’ve emphasized the benefits of keeping everything as original as possible, especially protecting the tabby siding which is one of the distinct aspects of the Strain’s construction. It’s in the good hands of Ethos Preservation, Landmark Preservation, and Lominack Coleman Smith Architects. They’re doing the serious work of putting everything back into place and insuring the building is around for another 200 years. I hope to get more detailed photos in the near future, and will share them here.
West Darien Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Rena P. Wilson (16 July 1869-17 August 1934). The text* on the stone is difficult to read, which isn’t an insult to the maker, but rather an indictment on the state of education available to black Georgians in the Jim Crow era. *Bon July 161869 -Di.d. Au 17 1934-Age 65 3-Mont 1 Day- At rest
The challenges facing African-Americans in tracing their ancestry have been widely publicized in recent years and among them is the absence of marked graves in cemeteries dating from the days of slavery well into the Jim Crow era. Groups like the Black Cemetery Network are working against time to research and document these important resources.
Dunwoody Cemetery, in a patch of palmetto and oak beside Interstate 95 near Darien, is a perfect example of such a place. The beautiful vernacular headstone of Rena P. Wilson, who was born just after slavery’s end, is the only memorial I could locate here. Most of the earlier markers were made of wood and are long lost to the elements.
The land where Dunwoody is located was originally part of a grant from King George II to Sir Patrick Houston dating to 1757. When the land was purchased by James Smith upon Houston’s death in 1798, it was named Sidon and became part of Smith’s network of profitable rice operations along Cathead Creek. A tabby plantation house, slave dwellings, and this slave cemetery made up the main part of the plantation, which was operated by Smith’s daughter, Elizabeth Dunwoody. All traces of the plantation are now gone, except this cemetery.
