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.