This Ludowici Tile-roofed farmhouse has always been a landmark in my travels. It’s an unusual example of a common vernacular form [saddlebag]. Virginia Tarrer identified it as her home and added: …we redid it around 1976. [It] used to be at the bottom of the hill in Ideal, it was a railroad foreman’s house and was moved to this location but I have no idea what year. She notes that they purchased the home from the Clifford Hines family and that the Cannon family were also earlier owners.
This historic general store likely derived its name from an assertion that anything you could get anything here that you could get in New York. Though the name seems out of place in Oglethorpe, such names were a common marketing angle at one time. This store likely dates to the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century.
Travelers Rest was an early community near the banks of the Flint River, settled circa 1830 as pioneers pushed westward in the Georgia interior. On land given by pioneer David Jones in 1836, the Methodists established a church and cemetery here, which they shared with Travelers Rest Baptist until that congregation built a new home, just steps away, in 1867. For many years they were referred to as twin churches.
Travelers Rest was incorporated as Bristol in 1838 but by the 1860s was supplanted in importance by the growing communities of Oglethorpe and Montezuma, a few miles distant. Since most members of Travelers Rest Methodist moved their letters to new congregations in those communities, the church was deeded to the Travelers Rest C. M. E. Church in 1884. The present structure was built circa 1890 by the African-Americans and hosted its last service in 1994. Graves of black and white members are scattered around the building, mostly obscured by vegetation today and in desperate need of attention.
Tax records date this house to 1908 but I believe the front section is a much earlier central hallway cottage.
Situated on an imposing knoll just west of Marshallville, this Neoclassical Revival landmark was built by Anson Ball Slappey for his daughter Alma and her husband, J. Leonard Jones, as the center of the 800-acre Alma Fruit Farm. The Roy Peterson family were also longtime owners, and many still refer to the property as the Peterson Farm.
Louise Frederick Hays, author of History of Macon County, also resided here for a time.
Thanks to Lori Kelley Adams for help with the identification. I made these photos about 10 years ago and for some reason had never been able to identify the house.
National Register of Historic Places
This small store probably sold groceries and gas.
This photograph dates to 2009. The house was located between Marshallville and Garden Valley; I’m not sure if it’s still standing.
Montezuma Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Montezuma Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 