Tag Archives: National Register of Historic Places

William Root House, Circa 1845, Marietta

The historic William Root House in Marietta, Georgia, surrounded by a white picket fence and landscaped garden.

The William Root House is a typical I-House form with a shed room at the rear (Plantation Plain), enhanced by a vernacular Greek Revival portico. Built circa 1845, it is one of the oldest houses in Marietta and an inspiring preservation success story. It was facing demolition when it was saved by Cobb Landmarks and now serves as a cultural and historic focal point. It was originally located two blocks east on the northeast corner of Church and Lemon streets and has been relocated twice. In 1893, the house was repositioned on its original lot. In 1989, it was relocated two blocks to its present location and restored. It is now an award-winning house museum, operated by Cobb Landmarks.

William Root (1815-1891), a native of Philadelphia, moved to Marietta in 1839, five years after the city’s founding. He began working as an assistant in William H. Kitchens’s drug store in Augusta in 1836, then relocated to Hamburg, South Carolina, in 1837. After a brief return to Philadelphia in 1838, he came back to Augusta in 1839 and then moved to Marietta to open a new drug and grocery store for Kitchens. On 15 September 1840, he married Hannah Rhemer Simpson (1807-1886).

The business grew quickly and Root became an influential pioneer citizen of Marietta. He helped establish St. James Episcopal Church. In 1844 he purchased the business from Kitchens and built this home about a year later. The Roots had five children (one son died as a toddler), and, according to the 1860 census, four enslaved people in their service. Cobb Landmarks has identified two of the enslaved by name: Lall Burge, who was likely a butler, or house servant, and Elsay Blake, also a domestic laborer.

With Atlanta and environs in the crosshairs of the Union armies, the Root family relocated to Washington, Georgia, in June 1864. They returned to a ruined Marietta on 15 July 1865, but fared better than many others, who lost everything. They were able to reoccupy their house. According to family papers, William Root noted, “Our dwelling, though damaged, was in tolerable condition.”

In 1866 William Root opened a new store on the Marietta Square, and owned the entire block bounded by Church, Ardis, Cherokee, and Lemon streets, the block on which the Root House originally stood. Marietta quickly rebuilt after the war and by the 1870s, Root’s sons joined him in business. He sold it to John R. Winters in 1884 and retired.

National Register of Historic Places

Glover-Horne-Wells House, Circa 1869, Marietta

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Glover-Horne-Wells House, a charming yellow cottage in Marietta, Georgia, with white columns and red shutters, featuring a front porch with a wooden door and a small chair. Surrounding the house are neatly trimmed bushes and a brick pathway leading up to the entrance.

I stayed next door to this neat little cottage on a recent trip. I haven’t been able to track down much history, but it was apparently built by a member of the Glover family, who were among the earliest settlers of Marietta. It appears to have originated as a simple central hallway form and has been expanded, as is common with houses of this type. The narrow door and transom and sidelights are likely original, but the porch, which gives the house a vernacular Greek Revival appearance, may have been a slightly later addition. I will update when I learn more.

Whitlock Avenue Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Monticello Landmark Lost to Fire

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The Jordan-Lanier House in Monticello, Georgia, featuring prominent columns, set against a clear blue sky, with landscaped greenery in the foreground.

I first published this photograph (above) of Monticello’s Jordan-Lanier House in 2015. It was a well-known landmark just off the square downtown, though I never learned much about its history. I was saddened to get a message from my friend Aubrey Newby yesterday, noting that it was lost to fire on 11 May. As you can see from Aubrey’s photograph (below), nothing survived but the chimneys and the columns which defined the house. I don’t know any details about the fire, but wanted to share this news.

Ruins of the Jordan-Lanier House in Monticello, Georgia with standing columns and a chimney, surrounded by vegetation and a yellow caution tape. — Ruins of the Jordan-Lanier House, Monticello, Georgia. © Aubrey Newby

Monticello Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Folk Victorian Cottage, Circa 1911, Metter

Trapnell-Boyd House, 1909, Metter

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A charming historic house with a white façade, black roof, and a red front door, surrounded by green shrubs and a well-maintained lawn.

The Trapnell-Boyd House is one of the finest examples in Metter of this eclectic architectural style that dominated small Georgia towns around the turn of the 20th century. The overall appearance is Folk Victorian, but the tapered posts aren’t really Victorian at all.

South Metter Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Evans County Courthouse, 1923, Claxton

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Front view of Evans County Court House with a blue sky, featuring American and state flags, and landscaped yard.

The Evans County Courthouse was built in 1923 at a cost of $60,000, replacing temporary offices in the White Building. It was one of several in the area designed by prolific courthouse architect J. J. Baldwin.

National Register of Historic Places

Nettie C. Hall: Fitzgerald’s ‘Mother Enterprise’

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A sepia-toned portrait of suffragist and early woman entrepreneur Nettie C. Hall with glasses, wearing a white blouse with a dark collar, looking directly at the camera. — Anzonetta “Nettie” Crabb Hall (1841-14 June 1908). Courtesy Blue & Gray Museum.

Nettie Crabb was born in Brownstown, Indiana, in 1841, but further details of her early life are elusive. She married Dr. Robert L. Weems, a physician who served as a surgeon during the Civil War. Widowed in 1880, she moved to Bird Island, Minnesota, where she worked as a milliner. In 1882 she homesteaded in Wessington Springs, Dakota Territory (present-day South Dakota), and worked in a pharmacy, which she would eventually own, the only known woman in the territory to do so. In The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (2009), Ann D. Gordon noted that Nettie was “well skilled in her profession (pharmacy).”

Nettie married another Civil War veteran, Cleveland T. Hall, in 1884, but was widowed again in 1886. Ever busy, Nettie was elected as a trustee of the Wessington Springs school in 1887 and 1888, and was also served as an election judge. In 1889, she argued for women’s suffrage at a state constitutional convention. Later that year she served as vice-president of the Jerauld County Equal Suffrage Association. In 1890 she was prominent in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).

In 1895, she was one of the first settlers of Fitzgerald. where she established the Fitzgerald Enterprise, the first major newspaper in the community. She also remained active in the WCTU and was known for her support of railroad workers. Her first son, Victor, had died of exposure when his train was caught in a snowstorm in Minnesota. When Nettie C. Hall died at the age of 68 on 14 June 1908, she was a legend of the community and her lifetime of work and advocacy was celebrated. In 1910, railroad workers and the WCTU erected the “Mother Enterprise” drinking fountain in her honor.

A stone fountain featuring a spherical top and an engraved base that reads 'Mother Enterprise,' set in a park-like area with buildings and parked cars in the background.

Fitzgerald Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

United State Post Office & Courthouse, 1933, Columbus

Queen Anne Shotgun House, Columbus

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Historic yellow shotgun house with turquoise shutters and a white picket fence in Columbus Historic District, featuring rocking chairs on the porch and an American flag.

This is another example of a modified shotgun house, in this case made fancy with Queen Anne elements.

Columbus Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Eclectic Cottage, 1869, Columbus

Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown

Since 2008. A visual survey of Georgia's historic architecture and culture. 9,000 locations. 30,000 images.

Tag Archives: National Register of Historic Places

William Root House, Circa 1845, Marietta

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Glover-Horne-Wells House, Circa 1869, Marietta

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Monticello Landmark Lost to Fire

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Folk Victorian Cottage, Circa 1911, Metter

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Trapnell-Boyd House, 1909, Metter

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Evans County Courthouse, 1923, Claxton

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Nettie C. Hall: Fitzgerald’s ‘Mother Enterprise’

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United State Post Office & Courthouse, 1933, Columbus

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Queen Anne Shotgun House, Columbus

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Eclectic Cottage, 1869, Columbus

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