This Eastlake-influenced Queen Anne home was built for Joseph Simpson Garrett (1831-1923), a wholesale liquor and tobacco retailer in Columbus who was the patriarch of a family that has been referred to as the “Whiskey Garretts“. Garrett served the Confederacy, ultimately as the commanding colonel of the Seventh Alabama Calvary. As the threat of prohibition and local option sales of alcohol loomed over his business, Garrett and his sons continued their business in Baltimore, with great success. Col. Garrett remained in Columbus, where he was appointed postmaster circa 1899. He sold the house to banker Osborn C. Bullock (1852-1929) in 1910 and moved onto a plantation outside the city. Bullock’s widow, Minnie Drane Bullock (1857-1937) lived here until her death, and their daughter, Margaret Bryan Bullock Schaefer (1900-1985), was the last family member to reside here.
High Uptown Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
My friend David Bray recently made me aware of this house, and wondered if it might be an early Federal house. From his descriptions, and seeing the house, I had the same thought, but the published history suggests it dates to circa 1885, with one reference dating it as late as 1900.
An obscure historical reference entitled Coopers Memoirs by Cullen Wood states: “The village of Coopers developed about the time the Central of Georgia Railroad laid its spur line from Gordon to Eatonton in 1851. It got its name from a family who owned land in the vicinity of railroad crossing, Rev. William M. Cooper (1811-1866), [his wife Millie McGinty Cooper (1811-1883)] and his son, Thomas Jefferson Cooper (1837-1921).” Thomas was a Confederate veteran, serving in Cos. F and C of the 6th Georgia Infantry State Guards. The Rev. and Mrs. Cooper are buried at Camp Creek Primitive Baptist Cemetery; Thomas is buried at Cooperville Baptist Cemetery.
Without more information, I’d guess the house was built by Rev. Cooper and perhaps expanded by his son, but it still looks like an earlier construction. I will update if I learn more.
The History of Twiggs County, Georgia by J. Lanette O’Neal Faulk and Billy Walker Jones (Major General John Twiggs Chapter, D.A.R., Jeffersonville, 1960) notes: “This house was built by Dr. Beniah Carswell at Jeffersonville, Georgia about 1850. The original structure had five rooms and a hall downstairs with two rooms and a hall upstairs. The house was later owned by Nelson Carswell, a grandson of Dr. Carswell. In 1948 Mr. and Mrs. James Edward Beck bought the house from Nelson Carswell which they later remodeled, the timbers used in the renovation having come from Todd Hall”, later known as the Wall Place in Wilkinson County.”
A 2006 historic resources survey conducted by the state of Georgia adds that the house was remodeled circa 1948. Renovations included the replacement of the south end chimney, addition of new piers and asbestos siding, and the addition of a one-story wing on the north side of the house.
Dr. Beniah S. Carswell (1830-1895) was a native of Telfair County, the son of Alexander Carswell and Elizabeth W. Ashley Carswell. He served in Co. A, 22nd Batallion State Guard Cavalry during the Civil War. His first wife and the mother of his children was Caroline Julia Matilda “Carrie” Sears. He later married Mattie R. Harrell (1851-1914).
Note: This replaces and expands a post originally published on 31 March 2018.
This superb Greek Revival cottage was built by James Peter Guerry (1803-1878) between 1836-1840, and is one of the oldest documented houses in Americus. Guerry was born in South Carolina and with two of his brothers came to Americus in the 1830s. They were among the earliest settlers of the city. Guerry served as a state representative and judge. After his sons returned to Americus after their service in the Civil War, Guerry turned the house over to one of them, John C. Guerry, and retired to his plantation near Plains. John C. Guerry sold the house to Beverly C. Mitchell (1818-1889) in 1878 and the Mitchell family remained there until the 1940s.
William H. Mell is believed to be the first owner of this home, more commonly known today as the Capers Dickson House, for the next owner, William Glen Capers “Judge” Dickson (1845-1914). Dickson was a private in Company 1, Cobb’s Legion, Infantry Batallion. Dickson served as a city judge in the courts of Newton County and was a law professor at Emory College.
The facade of the house is very reminiscent of the Milledgeville Federal style, though the overall floor plan is L-shaped.
Oxford Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Christened “Orna Villa” in 1820 by Dr. Alexander Means, Jr. (1801-1883), this is the oldest house in Oxford, and if the log house from which it was expanded is considered, likely has origins in the 1790s.
In her highly-readable history of the house, current owner Lisa Dorward has done more research than anyone else, it seems. She writes: A Virginian by the name of Richard Keenon Dearing had come to Georgia in 1793 and purchased 2,000 acres of land on which he built a four-room plantation house of hand-hewn logs. Dr. Means bought the house from Dearing around 1820 and set about expanding and remodeling it into the grand Greek Revival house it is today. Among Dr. Means’s many interests was ornithology, so he named his home that stood among the trees, Orna Villa, meaning “Bird House.”
Alexander Means, Jr., was a renaissance man who, as the Oxford Historical Society notes, served as a physician, school teacher, scientist, college professor, poet, college president, statesman, and as the first state chemist in the United States. Born to an Irish immigrant father and Scots-Irish mother in Statesville, North Carolina, Means settled circa 1820 in what would eventually become the town of Oxford. He married Sarah A. E. Winston in 1827 and they had 11 children. He helped establish the Newton County Female Seminary, served as president of the Georgia Conference Manual Labor School, and taught natural sciences at the newly established Emory College, among other academic endeavors. He entertained President Millard Fillmore at Orna Villa, and delivered the funeral oration for President Zachary Taylor. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Medicine degree from the Medical College of Georgia, where he taught during winter sessions. He retired from Emory in 1855, after briefly serving as president. Though he traveled and lectured in many locations, he remained at Orna Villa throughout his life.
As accomplished as he was and as varied his interests, Means, was also man of his time Research by Dr. Gary Hauk and Dr. Sally Wolff King suggests that between 20-28 men, women, and children were enslaved at Orna Villa. Ironically perhaps, Dr. Means was initially opposed to secession, but soon became a vocal supporter of the Confederacy.
Orna Villa stands today as one of the most tangible symbols of Oxford and Newton County’s early history. There are quite a few “ghost stories” related to the house, as well, especially those concerning Toby Means, but you’ll have to read Lisa Doward’s articles to learn more about them.
From inspiring Margaret Mitchell’s Hollywood vision of Ashley Wilkes’s home, Twelve Oaks, in Gone With the Wind, to appearances in In the Heat of the Night, The Vampire Diaries, Vacation, Life of the Party, The Family That Preys, and other movies and television shows, this magnificent home has perhaps come to symbolize Covington more than any other.
The home was built as a Greek Revival townhouse for Judge John Harris (1803-1878) circa 1836, on a smaller scale. After his country plantation, east of Covington, was occupied by Union troops in 1864, Harris sold his townhouse to William J. Metcalf. Circa 1881, it was sold to Robert Franklin Wright, Sr. (1821-1919). Wright and his wife, Salina Frances Robinson Wright (1831-1905), named it “The Cedars”. Major changes were made to the house after its purchase, in 1903, by Covington Mills owner Nathaniel Snead Turner (1863-1931). Turner later renamed it Whitehall, after adding the colonnade, second floor porch, and a third floor with dormers.
The Harris-Turner House, as it’s also known, is now known as The Twelve Oaks and serves as a popular bed and breakfast inn. It’s a wonder not to be missed when in Covington.
Covington Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
With the recent loss of the old Liberty Methodist Church, this early I-House [Plantation Plain] is the last significant landmark that I know of in the long lost settlement of Calvin, in Jasper County. The two-over-two central hallway dwelling also features shed rooms across the rear and, barely visible on the left side of this image, a formerly detached kitchen which was later attached by a breezeway.
Wiley Phillips (1791 or 1792-4 August 1875) is believed to have been the first owner of the house but Sarah Yarborough from Warren County was the first owner of the property and the house may have been built around the time of her marriage to Jesse Tollerson [also recorded as Tollison] in 1813. Wiley Phillips’s nephew, Calvin Fish, is considered the first white child born in Jasper County and was the namesake of the Calvin community. Thomas Smith purchased it in 1833 but sold it to Richard Turner in 1835. Turner never actually lived in the house, though he, and later his estate, owned it until 1863, at which time his son-in-law, Benjamin B. Freeman, sold it to Shelly P. Downs. Downs was a physician and served as surgeon with the 38th Regiment of the Georgia Militia during the Civil War. It was next owned by Seaborn C. Kelly (1836-1872) sometime between 1866 and 1872. Kelly sold the house to James Benton on 15 January 1872. Scarcely three weeks after Kelly sold the house, on 7 February 1872, he and his brother John C. Kelly were murdered in Monticello by Clinton Digby, a cousin of Seaborn Kelly’s wife, in a disputer over a Black laborer. James Benton sold the house to Seaborn Kelly’s son, Burton Clark Kelly, in 1885 and it remained in the family until 1997, though it was unoccupied from circa 1958 until being sold to Philip A. Jones in 1998. Mr. Jones’s extensive research is the source of most of the ownership history.
This Greek Revival cottage was built circa 1840 for Henry Dudley Taylor, one of the first trustees of Andrew College. It was purchased by Marcellus Douglass (1820-1862) in 1860. According to the History of Butts County, Georgia, 1825-1976, Douglass, a native of Butts County, was an honor graduate and trustee of the University of Georgia who moved to Cuthbert to practice law. He also ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Whig. Douglass never spent much time in the home, however, as he died while serving as colonel in temporary command of Lawton’s Brigade at the Battle of Antietam at the age of 31. The family of Nelson Coffin (1901-1970), a mayor of Cuthbert in the 1950s, have owned it for many years.
Cuthbert Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
George Washington Jackson came with his family to Dougherty County from Wilkinson County as a young boy. At the age of ten he moved with his widowed mother and brother and sister to the Mount Enon community, several miles from Baconton. He served as a lieutenant in the Confederate army and later as a county commissioner. He had farming operations all over what is today northern Mitchell County; he built this home in 1898 to replace a log farmhouse at this location. He and his wife, Eulelia Peacock Jackson, had nine children. Numerous other families lived here throughout the 20th century.
The city of Baconton saved this important historic home and transformed it into their city hall. It’s a great example of thinking outside the box. Perhaps it will serve as inspiration for other communities to pursue non-traditional avenues of preservation.
