Instagram

I have started an Instagram account to share photos and history updates on the house. I will start back on posts here as well, but I'm hoping that Instagram will encourage me to keep up with both the renovation work, and history work that needs to be done. Sometimes both can be overwhelming! Find me there @grantparkfarmhouse or https://www.instagram.com/grantparkfarmhouse/

Downing Hill Nursery...

Atlanta before it was burned

Atlanta vicinity

When we first think of early Atlanta of course the mind immediately goes to the Civil War and the burning of the city. We know the history of slavery, and Sherman's march, and the stories of Atlanta reinventing itself out of the ashes. I think because Atlanta was still a young city when all this happened, and because it is such a devastating beginning, it is easy to see why Atlanta has chosen to leave its early history behind. I am a fairly new transplant to Atlanta. I was born in the South and come from a Southern family, though, as did my husband. I moved away at a fairly young age and lived largely in California and then as an adult spent many years in New York City. Moving to Atlanta was interesting for me, precisely because I feel somewhat distanced from its complex history. I am fascinated by a city that has so much history but largely ignores it, and chooses instead to constantly try to reinvent itself anew. I think somehow that early beginning still influences Atlanta's identity. Even today you hear regularly of old buildings being torn down or left to decay without much of an uproar. There is a wonderful history center here, and various organizations that try to maintain what history is left. It is not really a city that embraces its architecture, though, and certainly that is not what people think of when they are thinking of Atlanta. That is in part because a lot of it has been lost, especially due to various times of urban downturn and then renewal. There are many hidden gems here despite this, some existing quietly, like our home, for so many years without anyone realizing their significance. I find that fascinating. Perhaps because I don't really identify as Southern I can study or embrace the history here without the feelings of guilt or justified anger many Southerners associate with its past. 

I did not know a lot about the history of Atlanta before the Civil War, unless you count the images we all grew up with watching Gone With the Wind. The Hollywood vision of Georgia is quite different than its reality. Of course large plantations and slavery existed here, but those images were made much grander by Hollywood's depiction. Mitchell herself had a much more realistic model for her book. 

The Grant mansion, more typical of grand houses

You can find an interesting read on this subject here, where it is written about Mitchell:

Some think Lemuel P. Grant’s big boxy house on St. Paul Place just southeast of downtown Atlanta was part of Mitchell’s inspiration for Tara. Built in 1858 by the man who designed the city’s defenses during the Civil War, the house was stucco-covered brick, scored to resemble stone, a typical treatment for a house of that period. Typical too of the late 1850s, it was more Italianate than Greek Revival in its design, but it was an authentic survivor from the Old South and, when she died in 1949, Mitchell was trying to see that the then-neglected house was preserved.

As her book took shape, Mitchell spent endless hours in the library, talking to academics and others, and checking and re-checking her facts. “[W]hat ever else may be wrong with my book,” she said, “I do want it to be accurate.”[5] Her father was one of the founding members of the Atlanta Historical Society and his original research on Atlanta place names and other topics was part of his daughter’s fact-checking for her book.[6]

Also, an old family plantation also stood as inspiration:

Much like her characters, Tara evolved out of several sources, not the least of which was her maternal great-grandfather Philip Fitzgerald’s antebellum plantation in Clayton County. Born in Ireland in 1798, he was dead long before Mitchell was born, but his spinster daughters were still farming the place when she was growing up, and she spent happy summers there, absorbing their tales of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Located on several hundred rolling acres along the Flint River twenty miles south of Atlanta, the house itself had evolved around a two-story, plantation-plain style house built around 1830. Acquired by Fitzgerald in 1835, the house was wood-framed and had two rooms on each floor. Typical of the period, the kitchen was in a small structure detached from the house, but eventually connected by a breezeway.

Sounds very similar to my own house. Beyond those idealized structures, what was Atlanta city life like, I wondered? In my research I have found a very energetic young city, especially in the 5-10 years leading up to the war. There were early white settlers here in the 1820's but I think the 1840's and 50's saw an influx of people working hard to build a great new city, many of them not even necessarily Southerners. They saw an opportunity to be a part of something young and exciting and create a good life for themselves. A good resource is Franklin M. Garrett's very extensive book Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events, 1820s-1870s. It is a really comprehensive retelling of those early times and early people and has been a great resource to me personally. 

When researching Downing Hill I was initially led to Richard Peters. 

Richard Peters (1810-1889)

Peters played an integral part in the building, and even naming of Atlanta. Born in Pennsylvania, Peter's grandfather was an influential judge yet his own father struggled financially. Peters as a young man got a job in the growing railroad industry and worked his way up through the ranks to become an Engineer. After being offered a job in Georgia, Peters had to borrow money from an Aunt just to make the trip here. He helped to bring the railroad to what was then Terminus, and himself began buying land even though many people (including Peters) were skeptical that it would ever grow into an actual city. Much of the growth is due in part to Peters. He also championed the name Atlanta, even after it was already changed to Marthasville, by having it printed on a railroad circular "giving freight and passenger rates that was headlined: "Completion of the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to Atlanta." (Richard Peters Champion of the New South, by Royce Shingleton, pg. 24) The city officially adopted the name afterwards. In his comprehensive book Shingleton writes that "Peters stands without equal as promoter of Atlanta. His hand is evident in almost every urban promotion project in the city during the nineteenth century. He set the city on a path to greatness... Without question his role as a builder ranks him as one of the most important figures in the urbanization of America." (pg.4).

Peters was not only interested in growing a city, however, he was also greatly known for his interest in agriculture and farming. He bought a large amount of farm land in Northern Georgia but in 1855, along with his business partner Dr. William Harden, purchased the Downing Hill Nursery from William H. Thurmond (Harden's brother-in-law). "The headquarters for the new Peters, Harden Company, located on Fair Street, contained the salesrooms and plots for small shrubs and plants, while trees were grown in fifty-acre plots just south of present-day Grant Park." (pg.51) Fair Street is Memorial Avenue today, and from my research I believe the orchard was located here in the lot marked 42 (a brick factory was located here in this 1906 map): 

According to my research, Harden paid the taxes for lot 42 in 1864. Peters was also a long time friend and business partner in the railroad with L.P. Grant, which perhaps influenced in part his decision to purchase land here. Robinson also refers to it personally as the "Rawlins' place, just south of Grant's Park" and you can see that a Rawlins still owned part of the land in 1906 (as well as the name being listed on older maps). This interview with Robinson comes from the book Richard Peters, his ancestors and descendants:1810-1889, written by his daughter Nellie Peters Black. I'm going to include here the entire passage from her interview with Mr. Robinson, as I find it fascinating to the history of the area and also personally to the history of my house. The book was published in 1904, close to the death of Robinson, while he was still living in this house presumably. She writes:

During the war Peters left Atlanta for a time, along with many others. Robinson then bought the business from him. Even though later advertisements would have the endorsement of Peters it seems that Robinson did not have the means to keep such a large business growing. Of course it also took time for many people to bounce back from the war and much of that booming business never did. 

It's interesting to learn about Downing Hill now. I came across a piece written by Philip Mills Herrington titled Agricultural and Architectural Reform in the Antebellum South. Focusing mostly on the residence of the horticuluralist Dennis Redmond's residence in Augusta, Georgia known as Fruitland. He writes that its:

Herrington writes interestingly about a growing agricultural movement that was taking place in Georgia led by a number of factors, including changes in population, market crisis and erosion caused by the depletion of the soil from large plantations and deforestation. It was not entirely inspired by a desire to end slavery but instead to create a more sustainable practice of farming that could move beyond the reliance on a single crop system like cotton farming. The question was whether a more diverse agriculture industry in the South could naturally lead to the end of slavery and not just furthered prosperity while maintaining the practice of slavery? Some people saw this reform as a natural path toward slavery declining, while abolitionists argued that the South could not embrace agricultural reform without ending slavery first. Thinking of antebellum Atlanta in this context makes me curious because slave trading was a business here but with the growth of other industry and the fact that it was a city rather than a rural farming community you have to wonder whether it would have continued to rely on slavery as it grew? Of course that can't really be answered because the civil war did arrive and thankfully forced an end to slavery abruptly, leading Atlanta down a different path. 

Before all that happened Redmond of Fruitland spent some time traveling around the South as a correspondent for the Southern Cultivator, largely visiting sites of fruit production in Georgia and Tennessee. This included a visit to Richard Peters (who was for the record a slave owner):

Herrington makes the connection between the influence of Andrew Jackson Downing and the name of the nursery "Downing Hill". From my own research of the Grant Park area before the Civil War I found an interesting assortment of what can be called "gentleman farmers". They were men who were largely involved in industry elsewhere but also owned farms and farm land outside the city in what is now Grant Park. They were not subsistence farmers and seemed to identify as horticulturalists and nursery men instead. This included Peters and Harden, William H. Thurmond, Thomas McDowell, and William P. Robinson among others. Some of them did own slaves and some did not, but the smaller farms they kept in this area did not rely on large amount of slave labor. I do think it's important to acknowledge that history though, and recognize the important roll that men and women of color played in this growing area. It's easy to find information on the white men who helped to grow Grant Park but the identities and contributions of both slaves and even white women go largely undocumented. I will share some interesting stories about both groups in some later stories about early Grant Park but that will have to wait for another post. 

Because Robinson took over Downing Hill, and I knew from the 1906 map that he owned the land that our house sits on, I began with the assumption that the house was part of Downing Hill. While this helped me to learn more about Robinson and the fascinating history of the neighborhood South of the park, it wasn't accurate. In my next post I will share what I discovered from my deed research and from whom Robinson purchased the house and land here... which led me to finally learn its own fascinating history as well!

First steps...

Detail from 1906 Atlanta City Map (Emory Library online)

One of the first steps in searching for our home's history was to go online. We live in a digital age and the Internet can be a wealth of information. I think I mistakenly believed that there must already be some history or record of the house since it is so old, and one of only a handful left in the city. I did some general searches about the oldest houses in Atlanta, but nothing really came up. Even with the date the city has at 1870 you would think it would end up on a list somewhere? Grant Park is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. Many of the homes date back to the 1890's and even 1880's. The Grant Mansion was built around 1856, but unfortunately was not maintained (and much of it was lost to a fire) after the 1940's, much like the rest of the neighborhood which continued to decline into the 60's and 70's and after. Fortunately, many of those lovely houses have been saved and renovated (not including the ones demolished to build the highway bisecting the neighborhood). The Grant Mansion holds a special place as one of the few surviving antebellum homes, and currently houses the Atlanta Preservation Center.  Despite the renewed interest in the neighborhood's history and preservation, I was unable to find anything on this house in particular.

Our first clue came from the map above. It's a 1906 map for the City of Atlanta, which also includes land lot #'s. If you have ever done any historic research, especially in Georgia, you probably know the importance of land lot numbers, but it took me a while to figure it out. Basically, in Georgia, most early land taken from the Native Americans were distributed through a lottery system (That's another complex history I won't go into now, however.) Land was divided up in various methods and could be obtained through a lottery system (something I will go into more later). If you are researching a home in Atlanta the best place to start is with your Deed and do a deed search at the county court house. For most houses, this can give you the names of everyone who owned it. Things get trickier when you are looking at a much older house however. Not only was the land our house was on outside the city of Atlanta in the 1800's but in a different county as well. The land here was originally Henry County, which then became Dekalb County and then Fulton. Also, because it was outside the city, and indeed many of the earliest farms around here predated the city of Atlanta, records are not kept in the same way. Most owners had 100's of acres of land, not just plats of land with a house. Fortunately, the land lot number stays the same and you can use it in your search of old deeds and land records.

City of Atlanta GIS

closer detail of our property in land lot 22

1906 map, pointing to our current location

closer detail

From this map, you can see our house was once owned by W. P. Robinson (though many of the street names have since changed). This led us on a search for Robinson, that at first took us in a slightly wrong direction (more on that later though).

1870 Fulton County Census

The 1870 Census shows us that a 47 year old William Robinson lived around here with his wife, Ann Robinson and their 5 children (ages 8 to 6 months). It tells us that Robinson is from Yorkshire, England and is listed as a Farmer.

1880 Fulton County Census

The 1880 Census shows much the same. William P. Robinson is listed as a "nursery man", living with his wife Annie M. Robinson, and their six children (aged 18 to 4 years old). They also have a servant and three farm workers listed with them.

1900 Census

The 1900 Census shows that he and his wife were living with 3 of their grown daughters, and one adult son is listed next to them with his own family (Most of the 1890 censuses were lost).

I can come back to more specifics later, but William Robinson was our first clue to who owned this house and the land it was on. It was interesting to us that Robinson owned so much land at the time and so we set out to find out more.

Early searches showed a lot of William P. Robinson's associated with Atlanta, but didn't immediately point to a prominently known figure in the community (or at least one still known about today). The biggest clue at first seemed to come from History of Georgia Agriculture, 1732-1860 By James C. Bonner, where we found the following passage:

    "In 1854 Richard Peters engaged William P. Robinson of Cincinnati to come to Atlanta and supervise his nursery on Fair Street. Peters claimed to have imported 40,000 plants in a single year, including roses and evergreens.  Much of his stock came from France, and his propagations in turn found their way as far west as New Zealand. On one order he shipped 4,ooo peach tress to California around Cape Horn."

This led me to do a little research on Richard Peters to find out more about their connection. According to Richard Peters Champion of the New South, by Royce Shingleton, Peter's was an important figure in the development of Atlanta, much in the way L.P. Grant was. Indeed, he worked with Grant in building the railroad system here. He invested in a number of different enterprises, but he also seemed to have a fascination with agriculture and supporting the propagation of cultivars that would be well suited to the southern  climate. According to Shingleton,:

       "By 1855 Peter's irrepressible business and public improvement instincts were again exerted when he and Dr. William Harden purchased William H. Thurmond's Downing Hill Nursery in Atlanta. The headquarters for the new Peters, Harden Company, located on Fair Street, contained the salesrooms and plots for small shrubs and plants, while the trees were grown in a fifty-acre orchard just south of present-day Grant Park. Determined to learn the fruit business thoroughly and develope the best trees, Peters divided the orchard into a grid, with each square planted it with a single tree. Every tree was closely observed until it bore fruit." (pg 50-51)

So, at this point we know that Robinson worked for Peters and Harden in their nursery business, which was located south of Grant Park. We also knew the business was called Downing Hill. Further research led us to a reference to Robinson then owning the business himself. According to Atlanta as it is, Being a Brief Sketch of it's Early Settlers, Growth, Society, etc. (1871):

          "THE NURSERY' BUsINEss.—On Peachtree Street, near the Railroad, E. Van Goitsnoven has a neat store filled with a great variety of trees, shrubs, vines, roses, and field and garden seeds. He represents the “ Fruitland Nurseries ” of Augusta, and the “Downing Hill Nurseries,” of Atlanta, owned by W. P. Robinson, horticultural editor of the Rural Southerner. ‘ On the McDonough Road, half a mile from the city limits, are the “Atlanta Nurseries,” of Harden & Cole. Doctor Harden is well known in the city, and was formerly connected with the Downing Hill Nurseries."

So, next up I will share some of my research on Downing Hill, Richard Peters, Harden and W.P. Robinson.

Welcome to the other side...

...of Grant Park, that is! If you live in Atlanta, especially the neighborhood of Grant Park, you probably know much about its history. You probably know about Grant Park's namesake L.P. Grant himself. You have probably heard a little about the history of the neighborhood... about Grant buying land here in the very early, pre-civil war days of Atlanta. According to our neighborhood group:

The Grant Park neighborhood was named for Lemuel P. (L.P.) Grant, a civil engineer for the Georgia Railroad who has been called the "Father of Atlanta." As an agent for the Western Railroad Company and the Georgia Air Line Railroad, Grant helped to bring the railroad to Atlanta. During the Civil War, in his capacity as chief engineer for the Department of the Militia, C.S.A., he planned and supervised the construction of defensive lines around the city. After the war, he continued to serve the city as a member of the committee that named streets, member of the city council, Board member of the Bank of the State of Georgia and served on the committee to draft the new city charter in 1873.

Grant lived in a huge 1858 Italianate mansion in the center of his vast land holdings now called Grant Park. Between 1853 and 1883 the city acquired all of the land where Oakland Cemetery and the Park itself now stand, by gift or trade from Col. L.P. Grant. The remaining parts of Col. Grant's property were subdivided between 1885 and 1905 as the building boom began on all four sides of the city’s new park properly named the L.P. Grant park. During the years 1889-1898, Mr. G.V. Gress gave the city of Atlanta the original zoo and the Cyclorama, which were placed in the L.P. Grant Park.

Grant Park, as a neighborhood, began to be populated in the 1890's by middle and some upper middle class families. Craftsmen built many of the architecturally distinctive homes you see today. Most of the lots were shallow and narrow with unpaved alleys in the back of the houses, from the days when the city sewerage wagons had to have access to the outhouses.

The neighborhood reached its zenith around 1905. Shortly after the turn of the century, the neighborhood's battle with the automobile began when some of the wealthier residents, who could afford to buy cars, were drawn to such faraway places as Druid Hills, Morningside and Buckhead. Grant Park remained middle and upper middle class into the 1950's. In the 1960's, the automobile was responsible for cutting the neighborhood in half by means of a six-lane highway. Grant Park was severely disrupted and declined in the wake of I-20's construction.

A restoration trend began in Grant Park in the early 1970's and the neighborhood began to blossom in the late 80s and into the 1990s. Demolition of older homes has largely been halted and new construction seeks to conform to the character of the old neighborhood. During the 1980's, the entire area, both north and south of I-20, was placed on the national register of historic places. In 2000, the neighborhood became Atlanta's largest Historic District, bringing additional zoning protections.

Grant Park today is a mixture of the old and new residents with people of all levels of education, age and racial backgrounds living in the same neighborhood. The park is today visited by more than a million visitors yearly.

When we first moved to Atlanta we knew very little about the neighborhood ourselves. We lived in another part of the city, and mostly were aware only of its beautiful park and old houses. When we started looking for a home to buy, however, Grant Park wasn't really on our radar at all. Until, one day I was looking at a listing online for another house and happened to see this one recommended at the bottom of the page...

Nestled w/i Atlanta's largest historic district, this pre-Civil-War era, double-gabled Gothic Revival farmhouse is a restorationist's dream. Wide-plank hrt-pine flrs, 11+ ft clgs w/ dental crown mldg on main, 5 frplcs w/ orig mantels, orig. staircase, huge eat-in kit w/ new appls, ginormous lndry rm, tanklss wtr htr, totally move-in ready yet could still use some finishing touches.

As a lover of old houses I was very intrigued and asked our realtor to take us to see it. Needless to say, we ended up buying this old house. We moved in 4 years ago with our two children and have since had another child. We've also added and lost pets, including dogs, cats, chickens, bees, and ducks, and generally live the life of a growing family. Four years later and we have added many of our own fingerprints to its long history as well. This house, however, "could still use some finishing touches." Some things have been improved and many still need updating. I will share these things as a part of this blog too. I will share what life is like in an old house, with very little extra money (or real skills) for renovation. The main focus will be a bit different from that though. It will not only be about living in an old house, but also living in an historic house. It is an historic house that hardly any one knows about as well. It doesn't appear in the history of Grant Park. It's not listed on any of the historic landmark lists for the neighborhood, or the city itself... even though it is one of the oldest houses in the city (especially for one still lived in).

When we bought this house the realtor selling it told us this used to all be an old pecan orchard, and that the old tree in the front yard was a left over remnant of that. It was a romantic story, but it was also slightly inaccurate (including the part about it being a pecan tree). The city records date the house only back to 1870, but that seems to be a flaw in record keeping (something about a fire) and also not entirely accurate. The realtor did seem to be right in his assumption that the architecture of the house lent itself to the prewar period. One of the first treasures we found in this old house was a letter from an historian in the kitchen drawer. The woman who owned the house in the 1980's and did a major remodel involving tearing down walls was curious enough to bring in this historian to have a look. His assessment that the house was likely built in the 1850's and that it had many similarities to Grant's house (built in 1858) was our first clue that we had something very special here. We were completely surprised however, that no one seemed to know or care about this treasure. Some people who have lived in the neighborhood a long time themselves seem to generally acknowledge this to be the oldest house here, yet most people (even people we have met who were versed in Atlanta history themselves) were completely surprised how old this house is. Why is this? 

Partly, this is the legacy of a city that was burned during the Civil War and had to rebuild entirely. It is not a city that seems inclined to embrace its history (understandably) but seems inclined to tearing down and reimagining itself constantly. Much of the city's beautiful buildings and the history that went went them were torn down, left to fall down to make way for something new (often freeways). Another reason, truthfully, the house has seen better days. The paint is peeling, the roof (was) sagging, most of the historic windows were replaced with some not very attractive models from the 70's or 80's. It is also an unassuming house. It's not a mansion, like the Grant house was. There is another house around the corner from us that was in the same family for a long time (thus it's history is better known), and dates back to 1868. It is a much grander looking house from the outside, well taken care of and with a large amount of landscaped property. Most people drive or walk by our house and don't notice it. It is largely obscured by the old (not pecan) tree in the front, and it can be easy to miss. I also think most people fall for the misguided belief that antebellum houses were grand estate homes like in the movies. 

Gone with the Wind

There are houses that look like this, of course, and if you travel outside Atlanta to some of the historic towns you can visit them still. However, most of the homes of this period don't look like the Hollywood depictions you normally see. Even Margaret Mitchell was supposedly disappointed with the representation of Tara in the film. Her model was something closer to the Phillip Fitzgerald House, a home owned by Mitchell's family members and where she spent time as a child.

Phillip Fitzgerald House (1870's addition)

Fitzgerald House (original 1830's portion)

These types of houses were common to earlier Plantation life, and are known as the Plantation Plain style. While our house, as well as many others were embellished and added onto as times changed, the original front of the house is clearly in the Plantation Plain style. It is not Tara, nor would we want it to be. If you step inside much of it's history has been lost, but much is still here. The beautiful stair case with the original banister made to attach together without the need for nails. The lovely wide plank wood flooring that is rare in the city. Beautiful high ceilings below and charming (we tell our selves) low ceilings up above. If you are brave enough to

So, that's a little info to get us started on our journey. We had very little information to go on, but unlike owners in the past who may have also been searching for our homes history, we have the benefit of the Internet. As I have searched for our house's history I have also discovered more about the area itself. Despite all that is known about L.P. Grant very little is ever talked about in regards to the 'other side' of Grant's Park. He did not own most of the land here, but quite a number of interesting people did. Grant was only one of the many early pioneers of Atlanta, invested in growing this new city. I hope to share some of this history too and hopefully some of you will find it as interesting as I did!