15 December 1897: For Sale. My Home, "Cloverhurst"

On this day, as he had all week, new Athens Daily Banner editor Henry H. Carlton ran the following advertisement for his Queen Anne Victorian on Milledge Avenue (click to enlarge image):

Also for sale were the Bobbin Mill, and "the best Fence-Making Machine in all the land."

Henry H. Carlton had bought the 200-acre Cloverhurst property in 1885 from New Jersey native John A. Meeker for $11,000 (approximately $253,000 in today's dollars). The farm was called Cloverhurst because Meeker had planted the depleted lands with clover to stop further erosion and revitalize the nitrogen levels in the soil. Carlton built the house for his family and named it Cloverhurst after the property.

Carlton led an active life, and was described by Augustus Longstreet Hull as "warm-hearted and short-tempered," and "liked to be in the thickest of every fight, whether political or otherwise." He began his adult life as a doctor, serving in the Civil War, then later passing the bar and starting a successful law practice. In 1880, he took over the weekly North-East Georgian newspaper because he had become interested in politics, and eventually served as a state senator and state representative, and as a U. S. Congressional representative for the 8th District of Georgia. In 1897, Carlton returned to newspaper publishing, turning the Banner into Athens's first daily newspaper, and in 1898, volunteered for service in the Spanish-American War.

Carlton sold the Cloverhurst property in 1901 to Judge Hamilton McWhorter who was moving his family from Lexington, Georgia, to Athens. He lived in the house until his death in 1929, when the house was razed and the land divided into lots for a subdivision. The wide driveway featured in the illustration above became the Cloverhurst Avenue that intersects with Milledge Avenue today.

Learn More:

• Athens Daily Banner, Nov. 1, 1894 - Nov. 3, 1897 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Clarke County (Ga.) Superior Court. Deeds & Mortgages Vol. KK 1891-1897 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Oconee Hill Cemetery, Athens, Georgia, Volume I by Charlotte Thomas Marshall in the Heritage and general collections.
• A Postcard History of Athens by Gary L. Doster in the Heritage and general collections.
• Annals of Athens by Augustus Longstreet Hull in the Heritage collection.
• A Portrait of Athens and Clarke County by Frances Taliaferro Thomas in the Heritage and general collections.
• Athens: A Pictorial History by James K. Reap in the Heritage, Reference, and general collections.
• Athens Historian, Volume 6 (Fall, 2001) in the Heritage collection.
• A Guide to Architectural Styles in Athens by John C. Waters in the Heritage collection.
• West Cloverhurst/Springdale Historic District Walk, sponsored by Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation.