Typical of Georgia’s grandest town homes, the Bailey-Heard-Dallis House evolved from a smaller and plainer space to a larger, more architecturally-inspired vision. It’s also an important survivor of gentrification, as the 1974 application for the National Register of Historic Places attests: “…the house is currently the only Greek Revival dwelling left in its block. Only a few years ago there were seven such homes on the block.“
Thought to be the oldest house in LaGrange, it was built circa 1828 by General Samuel A. Bailey, who used it as his headquarters during the Creek Indian War of 1836. It was originally a simple vernacular form, with four rooms downstairs and two up, separated by a central hallway. When George Heard bought the house in 1842, he added four rooms and the exceptional colonnade, with six fluted Doric columns on the front and two more on each side of the house.
The home was acquired by George Dallis in 1888 and has remained in his family ever since.
Broad Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Benjamin Harvey Hill (detail), circa 1870-1880. Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Bellevue is a grand Greek Revival mansion, originally the center of a 1200-acre plantation property, built by Benjamin Harvey Hill (1823-1882) for his wife Caroline Holt Hill (1825-1904). It’s surrounded today by one of LaGrange’s premier historic residential districts. It was donated to the LaGrange Woman’s Club by the Fuller E. Callaway Foundation in 1942 and they have been its guardians ever since.
Benjamin Hill, who was born at Hillsboro in Jasper County, has been called a political chameleon for his wavering views and various party alliances. He started his career as a Whig and then became a strong Fillmore-supporting Unionist. Ultimately, he was Southern partisan who voted in favor of secession and quickly voiced public support for Confederate President Jefferson Davis while serving in the Confederate senate. Davis was even a visitor to Bellevue. In response to Reconstruction and the governorship of Republican Rufus Bullock, Hill helped inaugurate the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia during a speech made on 23 July 1868 that supported violence against the governor and others in favor of the Reconstruction government. He was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives and to the U. S. Senate in 1877. He died in office in 1882. Ben Hill County is named for him.
National Register of Historic Places + National Historic Landmark
The Maynard-Cheeves-Childs House is among the oldest in Monroe County. According to Jeunesse Millwood has been under resoration by the D. R. Millwood family since they purchased it in 1991. The wings were added in the 1920s, I believe. Jeunesse notes that her mother and late father have done a lot of research and meticulous restoration in what has turned into a long ongoing project. She says they have learned that the house either began or was completed in 1832. Originally by Thomas Maynard. His consort Sabrina died after giving birth to a daughter Susan and the baby a month later. Their graves remain on the property. Among other things it was used as a hospital during the Civil War as well as, we’ve been told, a hideout for escaping slaves. This would make sense as under the front foyer, there is a very large hole about 6ft x 6 ft. There was a trap door that once opened in the foyer but sadly, all the foyer flooring had to be replaced after the floods of 94 due to water damage. I believe the house eventually went to his son, Elijah, and then his daughter, Elizabeth Maynard Cheeves. Mrs. Flora or Florrie Childs, was a later owner. I’ll update when I learn more about the history.
This view from the west side is more akin to what the house would have originally looked like, even with the shed room at the back. With the Federal influence, there would not have been a porch of this configuration, either .
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
Milledgeville is a great city to walk around, largely due to the architectural relics that populate its historic district. A standout is a local style considered so significant it was given its own name: Milledgeville Federal. This is meant to be a starting point for exploration and research.
Referring to The Homestead [above], architectural historian John Linley defined the style: [it] may well be the first house in America to utilize a narrow colossal-type portico with only two columns. Though never widely used, the style became so popular in the Milledgeville area that it is frequently referred to as the Milledgeville-Federal type of architecture. Also emblematic are cantilevered spiral staircases, side-gabled roofs and fanlight ornamentation. There are variations but these are central to the style, which is strongly rooted in Federal and Greek Revival architecture.
Blount-Parks-Mara-Williams House, 1818
The man most associated with Milledgeville Federal style architecture is John Marlor. Born in England, he came to Milledgeville by way of Charleston and was active from circa 1815 until his death in 1835. Daniel Pratt and Elam Alexander both apprenticed or collaborated with Marlor.
Dr. Charles Paine House, 1820
In Milledgeville, Georgia’s Antebellum Capital (Athens, UGA Press. 1978), James C. Bonner notes that most of Marlor’s construction labor was performed by seven enslaved men who were trained carpenters. This would have been common practice at the time. Most large houses built in the antebellum era can be attributed to slave labor.
Orme-Sallee House, Circa 1822
The Orme-Salle House is one of the finest illustrations of the style, due as much to its Palladian doors as anything else.
The Cedars, Circa 1822
The Cedars is a beautifully executed example of the Milledgeville Federal style. It serves as the Phi Mu sorority house today.
Brown-Stetson-Sanford House, Circa 1825
This structure once served as the Beecher-Brown Hotel and later the States’ Rights Hotel, hosting legislators when the body was in session. It has one of the most stylized porticoes of all the Milledgeville Federal style houses.
DeLauney House, Circa 1825
The DeLauney house is slightly less refined than other examples, but is definitely a work of the Milledgeville Federal school.
Isaac Newell House, Circa 1825
The portico on the Newell House is more Greek Revival than Milledgeville Federal, but it’s definitely an example of the style.
John Marlor House, 1830
This was the home of the architect himself. John Marlor built it as a gift for his second wife.
Masonic Temple, 1834
The only non-residential building of Marlor’s that survives is the Masonic Temple. It’s considered his finest work and, architecturally, of national importance.
The Milledgeville Federal style influenced other houses in the area, including notable examples: Rockwell [circa 1838], near Hardwick, and the Daniel Pratt-attributed Jones-Ross House [circa 1826] in Old Clinton, in Jones County.
Milledgeville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
An Englishman who came to Milledgeville via Charleston, John Marlor (1789-1835) developed the Milledgeville Federal style of architecture, of which this house he built for his wife Ann Carlton Marlor (1797-1845) in 1830 is a perfect example. These would have been among the most prominent homes in the capital when they were built and are still the pinnacle of domestic architecture in the city.
The house, now known as the John Marlor Arts Center, is one of four buildings which make up the Milledgeville-Baldwin County Allied Arts Center.
Milledgeville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Swanscombe was built by the first white settler of Covington, Cary Wood, and is the oldest house in the city. It was originally a more simple form; the columns were a later addition, but they were present before the Civil War. The descendants remained in the house for several generations until selling the property to Thomas C. Swann in 1884. The name Swanscombe was given to the house during his ownership.
Floyd Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Robert O. Usher (25 April 1809 – 9 May 1859), a prosperous merchant in Covington, built this house circa 1840, and it remained in the family for over 90 years.
Floyd Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Though some sources note that a John or Thomas Gilbert constructed the first mill, now known as Chappell’s Mill, on Big Sandy Creek [South Sandy Creek] in northern Laurens County circa 1811, it is more likely that it was James Stanley II (1771-1841), a settler from Jones County, North Carolina, who purchased nearly 2000 acres surrounding the millpond. [Primary sources are not available to me, so I cannot be certainof the date of the purchase, but the Stanley family migrated to Laurens County in 1811. It seems more than coincidental that the date of their move happens to be the date generally accepted for the construction of the mill]. He also operated a mercantile on the site.
The millpond site is considered to be the oldest man-made landmark in Laurens County. The old mill house, seen in the first two photographs, dates to the 1840s and was built after the original structure, which stood on the north side of the pond, washed away during a flood.
The stone work in the foundation certainly indicates the work of early craftsmen, almost certainly enslaved laborers.
Upon Stanley’s death in 1841, his son Ira B. (1802-1858) took control of the operations. He served Laurens County as sheriff in the 1820s and state representative in the 1830s. Until just after the Civil War the site was known as Stanley Mills, but in 1868 Ira’s son-in-law, James W. Chappell, gained majority interest in the mill. It has since been known as Chappell’s Mill.
Ira Stanley Chappell (1859-1931) was the last member of the Chappell family to own the mill. He sold it circa 1917 to Allen J. Dixon who sold it in 1943 to Dr. T. J. Blackshear.
Dr. Blackshear eventually sold it to Alex Dixon’s grandsons, James and Forrest Townsend.
During their ownership, the mill was expanded and electrified (1950s).
The Townsends always felt that water power resulted in a superior meal but the volume of work mandated the modernization.
At its peak, production ran to over 15,000 bushels per year.
The mill remained in operation until 1997. Its importance is not only in its longevity but in the fact that various structures associated with different eras of milling, from water power to electricity, as well as a mercantile and various barns, remain largely intact, and illustrate the evolution of what was one of Georgia’s most important early industries.
I am grateful to the caretaker for allowing me to photograph. It is private property and he noted that law enforcement often has to disperse trespassers. It’s an invaluable historical resource and the owners have been good stewards.
