Architecture of Middle Georgia

The Oconee Area

John Linley

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780820346915
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Historic Preservation in Architecture

The middle Georgia area—including Baldwin, Hancock, Jasper, Johnson, Putnam, Washington, and Wilkinson Counties—is a vast living museum of classic southern architecture. First published in 1972, this sweeping survey remains one of the best books on the topic, covering primitive, Gothic, Greek Revival, and Victorian styles, and beyond.

John Linley's descriptions of the diverse structures of the Oconee area are illustrated with more than three hundred photographs and representative floor plans. Fine architecture, as Linley shows, is greatly influenced by climate and geography, by the natural resources of the region, and by history, custom, and tradition. He considers these major factors along with such individual features as green spaces—gardens and parks—and town and city plans, viewing the architecture in relation to the whole environment.

The architecture is discussed in chronological order by style and is related to the surrounding country, with each of the seven Oconee area counties presented historically and in terms of its own resources. Touring maps of the counties and the principal towns locate all structures and points of interest mentioned in the text.

1. The Land That Is Oconee

The Oconee Area is in central Georgia,¹ and like the state itself, is bisected by the “fall line.” In prehistoric times, the Atlantic Ocean extended to this irregular line. In a modified way the geography of the Oconee Area is a microcosm of the geography of the state. The northwestern counties are Piedmont: rolling hills and plateaus (2), sometimes forested, sometimes planted, and sometimes flaunting the rich colors of red clay subsoil. Below the fall line stretch both plains and sandhills, pastures, croplands, pine forests, and occasional areas where trees with long gray moss are reflected in dark clear waters typical of the “low country” swamps (3).

One Oconee Area county, Jasper, is bordered on the west by the Ocmulgee River, while every other county is bordered in part by the Oconee River. Downstream the two rivers merge and form the Altamaha River. There was a time when these rivers were the highways to central Georgia. Now of little use for transportation, their value to the economy and well-being of the area is greater than ever. Cities and industry are dependent upon such water supplies, and Lake Sinclair a few miles north of Milledgeville is a good example of how these rivers are serving the community.

2. Uplands, Jasper County
JL & KP

CLIMATE

The climate of the Oconee Area may be characterized as humid and temperate but warmer than average, and much warmer during the occasional “hot spells” which occur more often in the southeastern portion of the area than in those sections above the fall line. Specific climatic data for each county is included in the chapters related to those counties.

The connection between climate and architecture is most apparent in the early architecture, particularly that of the houses built just before the Civil War. Such characteristics as separate buildings for the kitchen, large porches, open hallways, high ceilings, oversize windows and doors, louvered blinds, lattice sun screens, and a preference for white or light colors were developed in part, at least, for their cooling effect. The practice of leaving the space under the house open for the wind to blow through, and the conscious orientation and arrangement of rooms for summer breezes and winter sun are further indications of the influence of climate on antebellum architecture.

It is interesting to note that these almost forgotten aspects of early southern architecture have been forcibly brought to the attention of modern designers who have the responsibility of keeping air conditioning costs down, and that the better architects today are concerned with sun and wind control as were their antebellum predecessors.

3. Dark Waters and Spanish Moss near Ball’s Ferry, Washington County
JL & KP

TOPOGRAPHY, EARTH, AND MINERALS

Within the Oconee Area there is a diversity of geological features. The northern one-third of the Oconee Area, including Jasper, Putnam, and portions of Hancock and Baldwin counties, is considered part of the Georgia Piedmont. Its broadly rolling surface has developed through repeated and long continued wearing away of exposed crystalline rocks. At its southern margin the Piedmont merges with the Coastal Plain. This zone of contact between ancient crystalline rocks and younger sands and clays is called the fall line, after the waterfalls and rapids often found where streams drop from the more resistant Piedmont to the more easily eroded Coastal Plain.

4. Maypop Bloom
JL & RH

Most of Washington County, southwest Wilkinson County, and all of Johnson County are in the Coastal Plain proper. This region is characterized by gently rolling hills, broad rounded summits, and overall comparative smoothness. The soils are sands and sandy loams which are white to gray in color with sandy to sandy clay subsoils. The color of the subsoil varies from the white of kaolin to gray, yellow, and pink. Gold has been found in the Oconee Area, as have semiprecious stones, and there are legends of ancient Spanish silver mines in nearby counties. It is the more mundane minerals, however, which have been of importance in shaping the economy and the architecture of the area.

Most of the brick used in pre-Civil War days was manufactured within the area, usually near the building site and of local earth, so that variations occurred because of the variation in the clays as well as in the method of manufacture. In the southern part of Jasper County much of the old brick is tan to cream in color instead of the usual range from brown to dark red. Brick, tile, and pipe are still being manufactured in Baldwin County.

Lime for mortar and plaster was formerly obtained from lime sinks existing in the area. Remains of prehistoric fossils have been found in and near the lime sinks. Deposits of phosphate also have been found. Local granite has been used continuously since before the Civil War. In important buildings such as the Masonic Hall in Milledgeville, granite was frequently used from the footing to floor level, being more frost resistant than brick. It was also used extensively for lintels and for steps, and in some instances for all exterior walls. Granite quarries in Hancock County are still producing both blocks and crushed stone, and are world famous as a source of rare pink granite. Blue chalk, bauxite, and fuller’s earth were formerly mined in the Oconee Area. Feldspar is mined at an open pit operation in Jasper County, fireclay is mined in Wilkinson County, and chalk is mined in Washington County. Economically overshadowing these operations is the kaolin mining and processing industry of Washington and Wilkinson counties.

FLORA AND FAUNA

Most of the land in the Oconee Area was once densely forested, with pines predominating in the Coastal Plain and hardwoods in the Piedmont. The great naturalist, William Bartram, who travelled through the region in 1775, left a detailed description of the flora and fauna of that time in his book Travels. Since then the forests have been cleared and the land cultivated. Now the cycle is being completed with the reestablishment of a predominant forest cover, this time mostly pine in the Piedmont as well as in the Coastal Plain. Moist bottomlands throughout the area contain a variety of hardwoods, including black and tupelo gum, cypress, ash, maple and bottomland oaks.

5. Muscadine Vine
RH

As is true of most of the eastern part of the United States, spring is heralded in the Oconee Area by budding deciduous trees and by the pale reds, greens, and yellows of maple blossoms. Pink wisps of the redbud, then the dogwood contrast with the dark evergreens. Scattered throughout the area is the Carolina jessamine, an evergreen vine with masses of yellow flowers that have the scent of violets. In late spring the honeysuckle begins its long season of blooming. Along the rivers and in undisturbed woods rare wild flowers grow. Roadside flowers abound in summer. Daisies and Queen Anne’s lace, little white asters and brilliant purple verbena, black-eyed susans and the orange butterfly weed are common throughout the area. Common also is the moon vine with large white morning glory-like blooms, and the trumpet vine with yellow, orange, or red trumpet-shaped flowers. Wild plums and blackberries thrive in the abandoned fields.

6. Cherokee Rose
JL & RH

A favorite with children is the maypop (4), whose bloom is known as the passion flower and which has the botanical name of passiflora incarnata. It is a small vine which spreads over the ground, and has spectacular bluish-purple flowers with globular yellow centers. The fringe of colored filaments inside the petals has been compared to the crown of thorns, while other parts of the bloom have been considered emblematic of implements of the crucifixion, thus the name “passion flower.” Children tie the fringe-like petals down as they do hollyhock blossoms, to make “maypop ladies” with long fringed, Hawaiian skirts. The fruit, or maypop, is ovoid and dark green until ripe. It pops delightfully when thrown against the hard earth, thus the name “maypop.” It has a bittersweet taste when ripe which adults dislike but loyal children profess to enjoy.

Fall color comes to the Oconee Area with goldenrod and autumn foliage, and comes with special brilliance to the swamps and lowlands of the Coastal Plain. Muscadines (5) and scuppernongs, the most delicious of the wild grapes, ripen in September. They are native only to the Southeast, and have a wild, woodsy flavor that is different from but reminiscent of the crushed leaf buds of the hickory tree, or of pine needles warmed by the sun. They are much used for making wine, but their unique fragrance and flavor is lost in the process.

7. Kudzu
JL & KP

The predominance of evergreens lends life to the woods and swamps even during winter. Besides the pines, cedars, magnolias, laurels, and live oaks, there is the American holly with its red berries, and that loveliest of parasites, the mistletoe, with ivory-colored, translucent berries like clusters of pearls. In contrast to the evergreens, are tawny fields of broomsedge, a tall grass that ripples in the breeze and seems to store and reflect the light and warmth of the winter sun.

Some of the plants which are now a familiar part of the Oconee landscape are not native. The Cherokee Rose (6), whose Indian name sounds so American and which is the state flower of Georgia, is said to be an import from China. Long escaped from cultivation, it thrives particularly in the old fields and along the roads of Jasper County. The soft pink or mauve trees which in summer blend into the landscape of plantations and farms are crape myrtles in bloom, another import. Newer colors ranging from pure white to garish pink have been developed. The sculpturesque beauty of its trunk when allowed to g...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. The Land that Is Oconee
• 2. The First Georgians
• 3. Early Settlers and Indigenous Architecture
• 4. Oconee Federal and Transitional Architecture
• 5. Greek Revival Architecture of the Antebellum Era
• 6. From Indigenous Two-Story House to Greek Revival Mansion
• 7. Antebellum Grounds, Interiors, and Diverse Architectural Styles
• 8. Victorian Architecture After 1865
• 9. The Classic Re-revival
• 10. Toward a New Architecture
• 11. Baldwin County
• 12. Hancock County
• 13. Jasper County
• 14. Johnson County
• 15. Putnam County
• 16. Washington County
• 17. Wilkinson County
• Maps
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• Foot note