Though obscured by overgrowth today, the outline of the this early I-House, or Plantation Plain, is discernible. It’s one of the oldest houses in Monroe County and is also known as the Moore-Wright House. It was the center of a large working plantation and farm at one time. A shed portico with square columns was added to the facade in the 1950s but has collapsed, returning the house to its original appearance.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 is a beautifully executed example of the Milledgeville Federal style. It serves as the Phi Mu sorority house today.
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.
The DeLauney house is slightly less refined than other examples, but is definitely a work of the Milledgeville Federal school.
The portico on the Newell House is more Greek Revival than Milledgeville Federal, but it’s definitely an example of the style.
This was the home of the architect himself. John Marlor built it as a gift for his second wife.
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
This home, one of the oldest in Forsyth, was built as a Greek Revival cottage by Judge Alexander Speer in 1841 [per 1990 Georgia Historic Resources Survey]. A.D. Hammond owned the house from 1857-1897. It was then sold to Judge H. L. Carson, who owned it until its purchase by Dr. John Oscar in 1906. It is believed that the Neoclassical porch and columns were added during Oscar’s ownership, circa 1910.
Major* Willis Pentecost Menefee (1814-1855) is considered the founder of Palmetto. His father, George Menefee (1762-1840), of Virginia, served in the Revolutionary War and was granted land in Jackson County, before moving to Talbot County. The elder Menefee is buried on the grounds of his plantation near Collinsworth Methodist Church in Talbot County. Willis Menefee established a plantation** in old Campbell County, near the site of present-day Palmetto and donated land for businesses, schools, parks and the Palmetto Methodist Church and gave all land necessary for the Atlanta and LaGrange Railroad. These gifts led to the creation and subsequent growth of Palmetto, part of Campbell County before its annexation into Fulton County.
This is actually the second resting place of Willis Menefee and his mother, Nancy Collier Menefee (1771-1852). They were originally buried on his plantation but re-interred in the Wayside City Park in downtown Palmetto in 1980.
*-I haven’t been able to locate a military record for Menefee, and therefore do not know whether the title of Major is an honorific or if it indicates actual service. Honorific titles were quite common among the upper class in the 19th century.
**-For descendants seeking slave records related to the Menefee family, I haven’t located any, but due to his status as a planter, he would have almost certainly been involved in this institution.
I’ve found numerous prominent homes in scattered Georgia towns which are examples of architectural evolution, or put simply, houses that grew over time. The Usry House may be one of the best examples of this practical phenomenon, having originated as a one or two room cottage and expanded throughout the years to its present appearance. The suspended balcony is said to be one of the largest in Georgia.
Long before McDuffie County or Thomson existed, the land on which this house was built was part of Warren County. William Usry’s family moved to Georgia from Virginia and first appear in the Warren County Tax Digest in 1805. Per Jonathon Davila: [The house, now called The Usry-Davila House, was built in 1795. My husband and I are the current owners. The roof, walls and floor of the original 2 room cottage are still here, the large house was built around the original cottage. Even though my husband is a very distant relation to the Usrys, we are the first family to live in the house that wasn’t directly Usry. Hence, the name change]. Usry was a successful plantation owner and like all plantations of the time, its success was dependent on the labor of enslaved men, women, and children. After the war, the Usry family wisely looked beyond agriculture for income and created the Goodrich-Usry Railroad to move timber from their vast holdings along Little Briar Creek to nearby markets. They were successful entrepreneurs in various pursuits.
Members of the Usry family lived here and maintained its historical character for well over two centuries.
National Register of Historic Places
Also known as the Ficklen-Lyndon-Johnson House, Holly Court is somewhat typical of the grander townhouses of 19th century Georgia, in that a “marriage” of structures led to its present appearance. The lot on which it’s located was owned from 1817-1830 by Bill Hoxey [born circa 1789], a free man of color from the Savannah area who was an accomplished carpenter. He was also a deacon of the Washington Baptist church, serving the Black members. It is believed that part of the original structure built on the lot by Hoxey circa 1825 has been incorporated into the house. Mr. Hoxey sold the property to William L. Harris in 1830. Laws of the day apparently prohibited even free Blacks from selling property so that was handled by Hoxey’s trustee, Lewis Brown.
Harris spent only three years at the property, selling it to Lock Weems in 1833. Improvements to the house were made by Weems before he sold it to his mother-in-law, Mary Shepherd, in 1836. Dr. Fielding Ficklen, Jr., (1801-1869) purchased it in 1837 and made further improvements. He enlarged it by moving and attaching another structure, which is now the front elevation, from his farmland about seven miles outside town. [Mrs. Jefferson Davis and her children stayed in the home in 1865, awaiting the arrival of her husband after the fall of Richmond]. Upon his father’s death in 1869, Dr. Joseph Burwell Ficklen (1830-1886) occupied the house. It is believed that his wife, Julia Weems Ficklen (1843-1925), was responsible for the fine landscaping that became a defining feature of the property.
In 1890, George Edward Lyndon (1845-1927), who later served as Washington mayor, bought the property from the Ficklen heirs. After Lyndon’s death in 1927, the house was owned by a relative, Andrew Lyndon. It sat empty for quite some time but served as the location for a mattress production project of the Works Progress Administration [W.P.A.] during the 1930s. Rochford Johnson (1897-1960) bought the house in 1939 and his wife, Elizabeth Barksdale Johnson (1897-1985) gave it the name Holly Court.
National Register of Historic Places
The land on which this fine Greek Revival plantation house stands has been in the Willis family since James Henry Willis married Sarah A. Barksdale in 1840. Mr. Willis began construction on the house in 1854, according to his granddaughter Mary Sale Stennett, and it was completed in 1857. Willis was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives the year the house was completed and served in the 1857-1858 term.
It is believed to be the first of three houses within a six-mile radius attributed to James Cunningham, an area carpenter. The Chenault House and Matthews House, in Lincoln County, and by influence, the Anderson House in nearby Danburg, make up this collective resource. The Chennault House is the closest in appearance to the Willis-Sale-Stennett House.
National Register of Historic Places