This was the home of Ballard Jones, Sr., who owned the gas station across from Midway Church. It has been abandoned for many years.
Thanks to Della Martin Horne for the identification.
Advertisements
Tag Archives: Endangered Places of Coastal Georgia
Dorchester Depot, Liberty County
I assumed this was a schoolhouse, as it’s located on Old Seabrook School Road, but apparently, it was the old Dorchester Depot.
Historic Seabrook Village writes: This…is the Dorchester Train Depot that once stood at the railroad tracks in Midway. It was first moved to Martin Road in Midway where it was a laundromat and daycare center. It was later acquired by the Seabrook Village Foundation and moved to Old Seabrook School Road in Seabrook. It was stabilized but not restored. After being awarded grant money through the ISTEA program, the foundation was arbitrarily cut out of the grant by the Liberty County Development Authority in September 2001.
Filed under -LIBERTY COUNTY
Old Post Office, Valona
This small vernacular structure once served as Valona’s post office. It’s located on the waterfront. Beth Walters-Parker writes: My great-grandmother, Lewis Burrows Graham was the postmistress at Valona and worked in that post office six days a week up until the week before she died at age 96.
Filed under -MCINTOSH COUNTY, Valona GA
Slave Cabin, McIntosh County
I was recently contacted by some friends in McIntosh County about the opportunity to photograph a slave cabin on their property. Of course, this immediately piqued my interest and when I learned it was of wooden construction, I was even more intrigued. Most slave dwellings on the coast are of tabby construction and nearly all are documented, so to have the opportunity to see an undocumented wooden example was extraordinary. The owners have shared its history, which I will update soon. The property is not publicly accessible.
The structure has been preserved by a couple families for at least 150 years and likely housed black domestics well into the late-19th/early-20th centuries. It’s presently in vulnerable condition, but the owners have expressed an interest in having it properly restored to historical specifications.
Since stories of slave cabins are nearly as abundant as those relating “Sherman’s troops slept in Granddaddy’s barn” and “George Washington slept here”, it’s important to “read” the structure to validate its age and history. There were myriad variations as to style in slave dwellings, so that alone can’t be used to confirm such a structure’s use. Most were very simple single- or double-pen cabins. Some were saddlebags, with a chimney in the middle, while others had the chimney located on one side (as in this example). Nails are a good way to make general assumptions as to age, and this one features Type B cut nails, which were in common use between the 1810s and 1900. The lack of glass windows is also a good indicator, though not definitive.
Filed under -MCINTOSH COUNTY
