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.
Named for its roof, the Slate Row was built to house the engineers who were constructing the grand home of William Johnston [the Johnston-Felton-Hay House]. It is considered to be among the earliest apartment buildings in Macon. Architecturally, they’re described in the nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places (1973) as “a simplified version of the Second Empire style apartment house that has been converted into a modern condominium building.” James B. Ayers, the contractor hired by Johnston, employed numerous enslaved artisans, according to research by Mercer Law student Nathan Corbitt. One of those artisans was Primus Moore, who worked on the construction of the Hay House. He was also responsible for all of the plaster work at Macon City Hall and was even paid by the city after Emancipation to continue the work.
This important house is little-known outside Hancock County and its specific early history is apparently lost, but a new look into available genealogical records sheds light on the story. It is certainly among the oldest extant houses in the county and, through oral tradition, has long been known as the Pearson House. I am grateful to Bud Merritt for bringing it to my attention. Bud writes: We “discovered” it this week and were clueless at the time to its status. It is close to the road but barely visible and in my opinion could collapse at any time. The brick first floor has many separations and the second floor in the rear is completely unsupported. It unleashed several loud creaks while I was photographing it.
The house has appeared in print at least twice: 1}In The Early Architecture of Georgia (1957), Frederick Doveton Nichols, identifies it as “Undocumented cottage…east of Devereux”; 2}Nichols’s work was later incorporated in TheArchitecture of Georgia (1976), with photographs by Van Jones Martin. It may have also been photographed for the Historic American Buildings Survey in the 1930s by Frances Benjamin Johnston. Curiously, it is missing from the two best-known architectural surveys of Hancock County: 1}Architecture ofMiddle Georgia: The Oconee Area (1972), by John Linley; 2}The Houses of Hancock 1785-1865 (1996), by John Rozier.
Further documentation was made by Catherine Drewry Comer in her thesis, Preserving Early Southern Architecture: The Antebellum Houses of Hancock County, (University of Georgia, Master of Historic Preservation, 2016). Comer doesn’t associate the house with a builder, either, but gives the best description of its style: [It]…appears based on its construction to be remarkably early. Its two basement-level fireplaces are almost identical to those that could once be seen at Old Dominion before it was lost in the 1980s...This house is of a very early style that was common in the Mid-Atlantic states such as Virginia and North Carolina. [It] is of frame construction on the second story, which rests on top of a brick first story…[and] has one chimney on each gable end with two doors to enter the first floor on the front and one door on the rear. Comer refers to its architecture as “Tidewater”, a popular description of the style.
Of the interior living space, Sistie Hudson notes that she was able, 35 years ago, to look inside via a ladder [and] discovered that it had paneled wainscoting and curved stairs to the half story above and that it would have had staircases from outside to the second floor. She further confirms its local identification as the Pearson House and its presumed construction date as “the late 1700s”. Mark Phillips, a longtime student of architecture in the region, adds: I have always understood that this was the original Pearson home…the Pearson-Boyer house being later built by a son…
Making the connection between the presumed builder, Stephen Edward Pearson, Sr. (1774-1854), and the house requires a review of the available genealogical record, which has been graciously shared with Vanishing Georgia by Cynthia Jennings. Pearson was born to a wealthy family at Padget’s Creek, Newberry County, South Carolina. He married Mary Polly Fletcher (1775-1833) on 28 November 1798. It is believed they moved to Georgia and built this house soon thereafter, as one record notes he settled around 1795-1805 in the “watery fork of Buffalo (Creek)”. It is likely the new couple brought a number of enslaved individuals to Georgia; he owned over 80 human beings at the time of his death, including several of advanced age. They would have been involved in all aspects of the home’s construction, from milling the lumber to making the bricks. [The undeniable similarities between the Old Dominion fireplaces and those in this house are significant. If the work of the same mason, perhaps an enslaved man, they help validate the “1795-1805” time frame. Old Dominion was built in 1806].
Mary Fletcher Pearson bore Stephen no children, but research on Ancestry.com suggests he fathered a child with an enslaved woman named Cilla Chapman; the child, named Cilla Pearson, was born in 1805. Mary died in 1833 and Stephen married Catherine Garland in 1834. Their son, Stephen Edward Pearson, Jr., was born in 1836. He built a home nearby, circa 1854, now known as the Pearson-Boyer House.
Zach Hedgepeth writes: This house was in my grandfathers family for many years. A brick in the chimney had 1834 carved into it so I believe that is when it was built. The house used to sit closer to the road but when the road was paved in the 1990s they moved the road over. You can still make out the parts of the old dirt road. Over the years passers by have taken pieces of the house little by little leading to its current condition.[I believe it is likely that the dated brick commemorated the marriage of Stephen and Catherine and not the date of the house, as the conclusion of architectural historians is that the house is very early and 1834 wouldn’t be considered early in Hancock County].
This post represents the research of numerous people, to whom I’m indebted, but in no way purports to be definitive. I hope it is a catalyst for further research, and as always, welcome new facts that can be validated through primary sources. The house is unlikely to survive but I am glad to further document it as an important relic of Georgia history.
This Plantation Plain farmhouse, built circa 1836, is the oldest in Webster County. Typical of the transitional architecture of the time, it retains a strong Federal influence. It is an amazing treasure that has only survived because of good stewardship.
The house is best known today as the Spann-Bryson House. I’m indebted to Debbie Walker for her assistance in tracking down the history. She spoke with owner Mike Connor and he and his wife Ann have done an amazing job maintaining this venerable landmark. Mr. Connor noted that it was built by a Mr. Sanders and was identified in the Webster County history book as the Old Sanders Place.
