31 October 1844: A Youth Library Offered "at the New York Price"

On this day, Albon Chase began advertising a new set of books, available together or individually at his "Book-Store," for the impressionable young men and women of Athens. 

 

Primary education in 1844 was reserved for those who could afford both to pay to have their children educated and did not require their labor at home. Athens had a highly literate population, but there were no free schools. The cheapest schools in the 1840s charged $3.00 per quarter for basic primary education, akin to $93.10 in today's dollars. 

Those with more money could hire private tutors for their children, or send them to one of the local academies that taught basic English, grammar, writing, rhetoric, arithmetic, geography, history, chemistry, astronomy, Latin Greek, natural philosophy, music, drawing, painting, and French. Schools such as The Female Academy (which offered co-ed education), offered subjects on a sliding scale ranging from $4.00 per quarter for the most basic instruction to $8.00 per quarter for everything except more artistic pursuits, which could be purchased as separate lessons. 

Most education for girls focused on softer learning, such as arts, recitation, and French, rather than the speeches of Cicero or higher mathematics. It was this lack of rigorous higher education for women that caused the Lucy Cobb Institute to be founded in 1858, for Athenians believed their daughters should be as well educated as their sons, and did not want to send them away to school for the necessity. 

Albon Chase was a member of the class who could afford education for his children. He was born in New Hampshire in 1808. became the publisher of the Southern Banner 1832. He established with John Linton the Pioneer Paper Manufacturing Company located on Barber Creek, just southeast of Athens, a venture that cleared 60% profit in its first year.

In 1845, he moved the newspaper offices to a three-story wooden building at the corner of College Avenue and Front Street (now Broad), with his newspaper offices above the bookstore. Many newspaper publishers also printed books, ledgers, and other sorts of paper materials for sale other than news; Chase also offered colored wrapping paper for gifts.

He retired from the Banner in 1846 after 14 years of work, but his son, William, purchased part of it in 1858 and acted as co-editor. According to the book Antebellum Athens, "political opposition charged that regardless who was the editor, the Banner was controlled by Howell Cobb."

Chase was a founding and guiding member of other local business ventures, such as the National Bank of Athens, the Athens Building & Loan Association, the Georgia Equitable Insurance Company, and the Southern Mutual Insurance Company, where he served as Secretary until his death in 1867.

He was also active in the practical running of Athens, serving as one of the city's first commissioners, starting in 1839, and representing Ward 2 off and on until 1859. In 1852, Albon Chase served as Intendent of the city, akin to being Mayor today; Chase Street is named for him.  Two of his homes are still standing in Athens, at the corner of Hull and Clayton Streets downtown (now apartments), and at 243 Dearing Street. He is buried at Oconee Hill Cemetery.


Learn More:

• Southern Banner, Mar. 18, 1842 - Mar. 6, 1845 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Historic Newspaper Archive collection in the Digital Library of Georgia.
• Antebellum Athens and Clarke County Georgia by Ernest C. Hynds in the Heritage and general collections.
• Annals of Athens: 1801-1901 by Augustus Longstreet Hull in the Heritage collection.
• History of Athens and Clarke County by H. J. Rowe in the Heritage and general collections.
• Historic Dearing Street by Frances Taliaferro Thomas in the Heritage collection.
• Oconee Hill Cemetery, Athens, Georgia, Volume I, by Charlotte Thomas Marshall in the Heritage and general collections. 
• Measuring Worth website.
• Digitized copy of Anecdotes of the Revolution.
• Digitized copy of Fables from Northcote and Others.
• Digitized copy of Hutton's Book of Nature.
• Digital copies of Beauties of American History.
• Digital copies of Lives of the Most Eminent Sovereigns of Modern Europe.
• Digitized copy of Juvenile Companion and Fireside Reader.

21 December 1906:"Many Improvements In and Around the City of the Dead"

On this day in 1906, news of plans to upgrade the home of the sexton of the Oconee Hill Cemetery, and change the entry site to where it is currently located was published in the Weekly Banner. 

The new burial lots were made available when the sexton's house was moved in February, 1908.


Learn More:

• Weekly Banner, Jan. 1906 - Dec. 1908 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Historic Newspaper Archive collection in the Digital Library of Georgia.
• Oconee Hill Cemetery, Athens, Georgia, Volume I by Charlotte Thomas Marshall in the Heritage and general collections.
• Oconee Hill Record of Interments in the Heritage collection.
• Friends of Oconee Hill Cemetery Newsletters in the Heritage collection.
• Georgia Cemetery Directory and Bibliography of Georgia Cemetery Resources by Ted O. Brooke in the Heritage collection.
• Your Guide to Cemetery Research by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack in the Heritage collection.
• Cemetery Research by Nancy Ellen Carlberg in the Heritage collection.
• The Cemetery Book: Cemetery Preservation, Restoration, and Recording by Ted O. Brooke in the Heritage and general collections.

1 April 1964: Autographing Party for Athens Book

On this day in 1964, The McGregor Company bookstore on East Clayton Street hosted an autographing party for the authors and contributors to the newly published book, Athens: Georgia's Columned City by Kenneth and Blanche Marsh. McGregor Company, located where The Firehouse bar is today, sold each hard-backed, 84-page volume for $3.25.

The Marshes were not Athens natives, but from Greenville, South Carolina. Kenneth Marsh took the photographs of the buildings and his wife Blanche Marsh wrote the commentary for each published image. In their Acknowledgments page, they thank the  many locals who assisted them with the book, including Mary Claire Warren, who was also present at the signing and appeared on the front page photograph of the party in the Athens Banner-Herald the following day.

Several of the homes featured in the book have since been acquired, restored, and put to practical use by the University of Georgia, such as the Cobb-Treanor House on Lumpkin Street, the Joseph Henry Lumpkin House on Prince Avenue, and the Wray-Nicholson House on Hull Street. Interior shots of antique furniture and chandeliers in the Stevens Thomas House on the corner of Hancock and Pulaski Streets provide a glimpse into the building's past as home to the Young Women's Christian Association, before it was converted into the office space it is today.

Other buildings in the book are now gone, including the Thurmond-Cofer House on Dearing Street, which was torn down to build Dearing Garden Apartments in 1965; the Mell House on the corner of Rutherford Street and Milledge Avenue, which was torn down in the 1960s and is now the location of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority house; and the Hull-Morton-Snelling House on Hull Street, which was torn down in 1990 to build an extra parking lot for the Holiday Inn. 

The Marshes published similar books together about Greenville, South Carolina; Charlotte, Bath, and Flat Rock, North Carolina throughout the 1960s. Their Athens book was the only one written about a Georgia location.

Learn More:

• Athens: Georgia's Columned City by Kenneth and Blanche Marsh in the Heritage and general collections.
• Historic Houses of Athens by Charlotte Thomas Marshall in the Heritage and general collections.
• Athens: A Pictorial History, 1801-2001 by James K. Reap in the Heritage and general collections.
• A Postcard History of Athens, Georgia by Gary L. Doster in the Heritage and general collections.
• A Guide to Architectural Styles in Athens, Georgia by the John C. Waters in the Heritage collection.
• Athens, Georgia: A Treasury of Historic Architecture by Mari L. Berry and Lisa Vogel in the Heritage and general collections.
• Souvenir of Athens, Ga. by Albin Hajos in the Heritage and general collections.
• The Columns of Athens: Georgia's Classic City by William Columbus Davis in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Banner-Herald, Apr. 1964 - Jun. 16, 1964 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation website.
• Athens Historical Society website.

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.

Newsletters Make Managing a Busy Holiday Season Easy!

On this day, we'd like to remind you to subscribe to our two Heritage Room email newsletters. They will be delivered to your email Inbox, and are a great way to keep up with all that is going on in genealogy and history during the hectic holidays, and throughout the year.

Our Genealogy and History Events newsletter covers everything from author lectures and genealogy classes to the many historic home and candlelight tours the occur every December. This is a great time of year to learn about the past while looking forward to the future, and this newsletter makes sure you won't miss any of the great opportunities available.

Our Genealogy Tips and News newsletter makes sure that you will not miss out on new resources and discoveries, even as your schedule keeps you on the run. With news about new database collections, research angles, and books, you could even find the perfect gift for the researcher on your list!

Click here (or either newsletter link above) to read the current newsletter and subscribe. It couldn't be easier, so sign up today!

23 May 1990: The Hull-Snelling House Is Demolished

On this day 20 years ago, the Hull-Snelling House at 198 Hull Street was razed by the Christian College of Georgia. Also destroyed that day was a magnolia tree on the property that measured 58 inches in circumference and was thought to be 116 years old. The space became a parking lot for the Holiday Inn across the street.

The house was built in approximately 1842 by Asbury Hull, a prominent member of the early Athens community. Asbury Hull graduated from the University in 1814, served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the University of Georgia for most of his professional life (1819-1866), was a trustee of the First Methodist Church of Athens, spent 1825-1835 as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives and was elected Speaker three times. He was Cashier of the Athens branch of the Bank of the State of Georgia from 1838-1853, was elected by both Unionist and Secessionist factions as a representative to the 1860 Georgia convention in Milledgeville, and was the first president of the Southern Mutual Insurance Company. He died in 1866.

His son, William Hope Hull also lived in the house before the Civil War. He graduated in 1838 from UGA, established a lucrative law practice, and served as Solicitor General for the Western Judicial Circuit. Along with Joseph Henry Lumpkin and Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb, William Hope Hull founded the UGA Law School. As a good friend of Howell Cobb, he was appointed Assistant Attorney General of the United States in the Buchanan Administration, though sided with the South in the war. After the war, he moved his law practice to Augusta, where his clients included the Georgia Railroad Company. He died suddenly on a trip to New York in 1877.

The house later was the home of Dr. Charles M. Snelling, who came to the University as a mathematics professor in 1888, and later served as Dean of Franklin College, President of Franklin College, and Dean of the University under Chancellor David C. Barrow. Upon Barrow's retirement in 1926, Snelling became Chancellor, and served in that position until his retirement in 1932.

During his time at the University, he helped start a co-operative dining room on campus to assist students of limited means to gain an education, created the Extension Division, raised admission requirements, and recommended that faculty be given group insurance benefits. While Snelling lived in the house, one of his guests was then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who had come to Athens to speak at the 1926 Commencement ceremonies. He died in 1939.

Though the house had been the home to many significant Athenians in the first part of its life, over the years it had also served as a fraternity house, restaurant, and at the time of its demolition, the Athens Community Council on Aging. The building was deemed too heavy and fragile to move, with handmade local brick creating one-foot-thick walls covered by stucco outside and plaster inside, original Italian marble mantlepieces, handmade antebellum glass windows, giant doors and doorways, and virgin long-leaf pine wood. The wide front door was made from a single slab of wood. None of these features were saved.

The Athens Historic Preservation Commission nominated the house for protection as part of an "historic mini-district" with other houses along the street in October of 1989, but the council vote to approve the designation was a tie vote and then-Mayor Dwain Chambers broke the tie by voting against preservation. Though local organizations searched to find a buyer, they were only given a month, and few were willing to match Holiday Inn's offer of $400,000 when estimates to restore the house ran from $350,000 to $500,000.

The episode galvanized the preservation community, and their efforts ensured Fire House No. 1 was not demolished but incorporated into the design of the new Classic Center. Since 1990, many other historic properties, including the Wray-Nicholson House also on Hull Street, have been saved and preserved to keep Athens the "Classic City."

Learn More:

• National Historic Preservation Month display outside the Heritage Room.
• Athens Observer, Oct. 1989 - Jan. 1990 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Observer, Feb. 1990 - Jun. 1990 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Banner-Herald, November 1, 1989 - November 30, 1989 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Banner-Herald, May 1, 1990 - May 31, 1990 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• The Story of Georgia and the Georgia People, 1732-1860, 2nd Ed. by George Gilman Smith in the Heritage collection.
• A Standard History of Georgia and Georgians by Lucian Lamar Knight in the Heritage collection.
• The First Methodist Church, Athens, Georgia: Some History and Recollections, and Its Trustees by John P. Bondurant in the Heritage collection.
• Oconee Hill Cemetery of Athens, Georgia, Vol. I by Charlotte Thomas Marshall in the Heritage and general collections.
• Politics in Georgia, 2nd. Ed. by Arnold Fleischmann in the Heritage and general collections.
• The University of Georgia Under Sixteen Administrations, 1785-1955 by Robert Preston Brooks in the Heritage collection.
• Antebellum Athens and Clarke County by Ernest C. Hynds in the Heritage and general collections.
• History of the Southern Mutual Company, Athens, Georgia, 1848-1923 by Arthur E. Griffith in the Heritage collection.
• Steam Locomotives and History: Georgia Railroad and West Point Route by Richard E. Prince in the Heritage collection.
• Georgia Railroad Album by W. Forrest Beckum in the Heritage collection.
• A Portrait of Athens and Clarke County, 2nd Ed. by Frances Taliaferro Thomas in the Heritage and general collections.
• A Pictorial History of Athens, Georgia, 3rd Ed. by James K. Reap in the Heritage and general collections.
• An Historical Sketch of the University of Georgia by Augustus Longstreet Hull in the Heritage collection.
• Georgia
• Maintaining a Sense of Place: A Citizen's Guide to Community Preservation by John C. Waters in the Heritage and general collections.
• Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation website.

Old is the New Green this May

On this day, we hope you'll stop by the library to see a fascinating display outside the Heritage Room for National Historic Preservation Month .

The display covers Athens buildings that have been restored and preserved over the centuries, those buildings we have lost to time and "progress," and those that have been readapted for reuse by our modern city.

Learn more:

• Historic Houses of Athens by Charlotte Marshall Thomas in the Heritage and general collections.
• Strolls About Athens during the Early Seventies by Sylvanus Morris in the Heritage and general collections.
• Strolls Around Athens by William Tate in the Heritage and general collections.
• The Columns of Athens: Georgia's Classic City by William Columbus Davis in the Heritage collection.
• A Postcard History of Athens, Georgia by Gary L. Doster in the Heritage and general collections.
• Athens, A Pictorial History by James K. Reap in the Heritage and general collections.
• Hajos' Athens, Georgia Photo-Gravures by Albin Hajos in the Heritage collection.
• Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Georgia by the Sanborn Map Company on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Vanishing Clarke County in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Sketchbook by Loran Smith in the Heritage and general collections.
• A Guide to Architectural Styles in Athens, Georgia by John C. Waters in the
• Athens, Georgia: A Treasury of Historic Architecture by Mari L. Berry in the Heritage and general collections.
• The Morton Theatre, Athens, Georgia: Adaptive Rehabilitation of a 1910 Theatre in the Heritage collection.
• Historic Dearing Street by Frances Taliaferro Thomas in the Heritage collection.
• Athens, Georgia: Celebrating 200 Years at the Millennium by Conoly Hester in the Heritage and general collections.
• Downtown East Urban Design Action Plan: Report on the Redevelopment of the Historic Downtown Warehouse District, Athens, Georgia by Richard Rothman & Associates in the Heritage collection.
• Historic Overview of 15-197 East Clayton Street, Athens, Georgia in the Heritage collection.
• Cobbham Historic District by Christopher W. Barry in the Heritage collection.
• African-American Historic Places and Culture: A Preservation Guide for Georgia by Carole Griffith in the general collection.
• Saving America's Treasures by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States in the general collection.

17 January 1872: Cedar Hill Place for Sale

On this day in 1872, the following ad ran at the bottom of the front page of the Southern Watchman:

The "Cedar Hill Place," the residence of Gov. Wilson Lumpkin for the last thirty-five years. It contains one hundred and sixty three acres of land, more or less, all within the corporate limits of Athens. About the centre of the land, on a high eminence, most beautifully situated, is an excellently built stone house, containing 12 rooms, with fireplaces. The place is near a square, and bounded on the east by the Oconee river, on which is a shoal with fall of water sufficient to carry on a cotton Factory or Mill. One half of the shoal belongs to the place.

There are no liens or mortgages on the property, and good titles can be given.

Anyone wishing to buy or know more, can apply to M. W. Lumpkin, on the premises. I am desirous of selling all the place together but would sell the shoal and a very convenient way to it separate.

Former Governor Lumpkin died December 28, 1870. The "M. W. Lumpkin" who placed the ad is likely his daughter, Martha Wilson Lumpkin, who inherited the property. She sold off acreage to the expanding University over the years, but would not sell the last of it, including the house, until 1907. As part of the sale contract, the house must be kept in its original location and never be manually destroyed, or else the land's ownership would revert to the Lumpkin family heirs. UGA bought the land for $12,000.00 with plans to build a new agricultural building on the property.

The house is one of few still around made with the metamorphic bedrock called Athens Gneiss that underlies most of Clarke County. It is no longer used for building, as it tends to break irregularly and browns from an original creamy white color with age. The original "Cedar Hill Place" had much smoother, lighter exterior walls.



Learn More:

• Southern Watchman, 1871-1873 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Historic Homes of Athens by Charlotte Thomas Marshall in the Heritage and general collections.
• A Pictorial History of the University of Georgia by F. N. Boney in the Heritage and general collections.
  
• Oconee Hill Cemetery, Athens, Georgia, Volume I by Charlotte Thomas Marshall in the Heritage and general collections.
• Buildings and Building Stone: The Lumpkin House web page by UGA Geology Professor Bruce Railsback.
• The Rock House on the Carl Vinson Institute of Government website.