Large plantation site in Georgia

Thornton Plantation, Pine Mountain Georgia

Date added: July 10, 2023 Categories: Georgia House Plantations & Farms Greek Revival

Thornton-Williams House, front facade looking northeast. (2002)

The Thornton Plantation's history begins with the settlement of the area of west Georgia due to the opening of the land due to the 1827 Georgia Land Lottery. That lottery, giving free land to participants, opened up a vast area from the Flint River to the Chattahoochee River for white settlement. It was only a few years after the area was available for settlement that the Thornton family moved there from easternmost Georgia, in the same mode as would be thousands of other families over the next few decades. The area was Georgia's westernmost land, ending at the Chattahoochee River with Alabama on the other side.

William H. Thornton and his wife Mary moved to Harris County (which had opened for settlement only in 1827) from Wilkes County, Georgia, in 1832 with their sons John and T. J., and daughter Frances, and other members of their family. The Thorntons bought about 800 acres of land for farming between what is now Whitesville and Beech Springs and became active in the Whitesville community. Both William H. and his son, John Turner Thornton, became members of the Rose Masonic Lodge members of Mountain Creek Baptist Church. John became a trustee of the church and a member of the building committee which moved the church into Whitesville in 1855.

John Turner Thornton married Lucinda Castleberry in 1834, probably in Wilkes County. During their 42 years of marriage, the couple had 10 children. William H. Thornton died in 1840, leaving most of his Harris County property to John. Around 1850 John built a house for his growing family; this house is now known as the Thornton-Williams house.

The U. S. Agricultural Census for 1860 shows the Thornton plantation at its height. It contained 1150 acres, with 400 improved. Seven mules and two oxen worked the land along with 17 slaves, shown on the U.S. Slave Census of 1860. Crops produced included wheat (1500 bushels), Indian corn (1500 bushels) and cotton (60 bales). The family kept milk cows, sheep and pigs; they raised peas and beans, potatoes and cane. Their orchard had apple and peach trees. Legend from a great-granddaughter says that Lucinda raised silk worms on mulberry trees planted in a grove near the house and that she spun, wove and made all five of her daughters' wedding dresses from silk produced on the plantation.

During the Civil War (1861-1865) two of the Thornton sons, William and Jarrel, served in the Confederate Army. William served first in Company B, 20^th Regiment, transferring in 1862 to Company H, 17^th Regiment. Family record shows he died September 30, 1863; he is buried in the Thornton Cemetery. Jarrel returned from the war in the spring of 1865 but died shortly thereafter on September 26, 1865; he too is buried in the Thornton Cemetery. During the war another Thornton son, 9-year-old Ira Hood, died and was buried in the family cemetery. In addition to their sons, the Thornton's lost many friends and neighbors to the war as well as their son-in-law, Abner Bankston, husband of daughter Emily.

The aftermath of the Civil War brought great difficulty and hardship to the Thornton family. The U. S. Agricultural Census for 1870 shows that the size of the plantation had decreased to 750 acres. By 1880, after the death of John Turner Thornton, the next Agricultural Census shows only 220 acres improved. The 1876 estate records of John Turner Thornton give a fairly good picture of the plantation operation through the inventory of perishable property. The sale details equipment (wagons, saws, cotton gin), livestock (cows, mules, hogs), and produce (sweet potatoes, wheat, sorghum) as being owned by him at his death.

Because John Turner Thornton, Sr., did not leave a will, his widow, Lucinda, and their son, John T. Thornton, Jr., had to buy as much as they could to keep the farm operating. They purchased 477 acres for the family, of which 220 was improved. Lucinda died in 1878. By the mid-1880s, John T. Thornton Jr. was having financial difficulties and was mortgaging land to keep the farm in operation. In 1888 and again in 1891 he sold land to J. M. Swint, who was married to his niece Lizzie Bankston; the Swint property totaled 108 acres. He eventually sold the remaining acreage with the house to T. W. Haralson, who lived there briefly before selling to A. F. Copeland in 1906.

Cornelia Elizabeth (Lizzie) Swint was born on a farm about a mile and a half from the Thornton plantation in 1855. She was the first child of Abner Bankston and his wife Emily Frances Thornton. When she was six years old, her father went off to war and she never saw him again. Her mother managed their farm and raised four children, one born after her husband left to fight; one child Eddie, born in 1860 and died in 1861, was probably the first burial in the Thornton family cemetery. Abner Bankston was killed in 1864 at the battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia.

Lizzie Bankston married Jim Swint, a neighbor in the Beech Springs area, in the early 1880s. They bought 108 acres from her uncle John Turner Thornton, Jr. The property probably had several tenant houses, one of which the young Swint family added to over their years of residency to accommodate the growing family of three girls and three boys, one of whom, Abner Bankston Swint, was buried in the Thornton Cemetery.

In 1905, the Swints sold their farm to Addis H. Hopkins, a cousin of Lizzie's, and moved into the town of Chipley (now, Pine Mountain), where Jim was working as a banker. Addis Hopkins' mother was the former Amanda Thornton, sister of Lizzie's mother Emily; she had married Powhatan Hopkins in 1865. For several years Hopkins co-owned and farmed the property with neighbor J. A. Reid, both of them living in houses on Hopewell Church Road. The Swint-Hopkins house was rented to families who helped work the land, and the land was used primarily for the production of cotton. In the 1920s Hopkins ran into financial difficulties and lost his primary house and land. He bought out J. A. Reid's half-interest in the Swint property and moved into the house.

Addis Hopkins continued to live in the Swint-Hopkins house and farm the land there until his death in 1940. His obituary in the Harris County Journal described him as "a farmer throughout his lifetime and prominently connected with all matters pertaining to community development." His wife and children continued to live on the property after his death; one daughter remained until the property was sold out of the family in 1985. Betty Cox Beegle, granddaughter of Addis Hopkins, remembers visits to the farm every Sunday from her home in Whitesville. The children often rode their pony over to visit their grandparents and aunts. They were paid 5 cents per bag for helping pick cotton, a generous sum that allowed them to buy themselves treats.

In 1911, the main house of the Thornton plantation was sold by A. F. Copeland to L. O. Williams, a farmer from the New Hope community. The Williams family lived in the house and farmed the land until 1942. Paul Williams, a grandson of L. O. Williams, lived in the house with his parents, Reuben and Louise Williams, until the property was sold. He describes the farm as a "two-horse farm" which grew cotton, corn and velvet beans. Hay was raised on the bottoms on the creek, and the family kept milk cows, hogs and chickens. He recalls that the uses for the rooms have changed: the front parlor was the parlor but also served as a guest room; the dining room was his grandparents' bedroom; the back parlor was the "boys' room": the kitchen was a dining room with the pantry in the southwest corner; the master bedroom was the kitchen and had a huge fireplace for cooking; the girls stayed in the upstairs bedrooms but generally the boys were not allowed up there to play; the front steps led to a sand walkway to the road and had a sweet gum tree on each side.

After the boll weevil came through west central Georgia, there was little money in farming. Reuben Williams farmed but he also worked cutting trees for other people. After the death of Mrs. L. O. Williams, the place was sold to W. H. Plowden from Atlanta. Mr. Plowden is remembered as being retired military. He had great expectations of being a "gentleman farmer," apparently with plans to raise chickens. Five years after purchasing the place, Mr. Plowden sold it to E. Gerry Eastman. Mr. Eastman was another absentee owner from Atlanta who came for occasional visits. During his ownership, the house started to deteriorate and the property became overgrown.

In 1970 the property was acquired by Cason J. Callaway, Jr., who owned much of the surrounding property. During the ten years in which he owned the property, Mr. Callaway demolished most of the historic outbuildings and modernized the house. He utilized all but 29 acres for lots in the Piedmont subdivision development which he platted around a 200-acre lake created by damming Mountain Oak Creek. The house and its surrounding fields were included in the subdivision. In 1980 he sold the house to his son Kenneth Callaway, who in turn sold it to the C. A. "Gus" Evans family of Columbus, Georgia, in 1984. The fields around the house have been used as hay fields since Mr. Callaway's acquisition of the property.

In 1984, Jim and Linda Straub acquired the Swint-Hopkins House from the estate of Addis Hopkins and continue to live there. D. Steven Sharp and Kenneth A. Shaw, Jr., bought the Thornton-Williams house in 1991 from the Evans family and they continue to live in that property. The Thornton Cemetery occupies a portion of the lots in Piedmont Subdivision purchased by Walter P. and Dancy Stroman in 1994. The Mullins Cemetery lies within the Straubs' property.

The resources of the Thornton Plantation are in a section of Harris County which is developing into large-lot subdivisions. The owners of the two houses and the surrounding fields continue to pursue agricultural practices through the production of hay and the raising of cattle. The owners of the land on which the Thornton Cemetery rests have won an award from the Historic Chattahoochee Commission for their stewardship of the cemetery.

The Thornton-Williams House is a good example of a simple, Greek Revival-style, I-house-type house with a full-height front porch supported with 6 tapered square piers. The house retains much of its original materials and an elaborate balustrade on the second-floor balcony. Original materials include doors, door hardware, original window panes, mantels, floors and ceilings. The front entrance retains its original 5 sidelights under an 8-light transom. A second-story balcony includes an elaborate balustrade and uses double doors. The house is also an excellent example of the central-hallway version of the I-house type of house with its distinctive form, proportions, and floor plan. This is a relatively rare type of historic house in Georgia.

The Swint-Hopkins House is a good if somewhat altered variant of the more common Georgian Cottage house type with its main, hip-roofed block containing four principal rooms and a central hall.

Site Description

The Thornton Plantation consists of two family-related houses, the Thornton-Williams House and the Swint-Hopkins House, as well as two cemeteries. The two houses and cemeteries are surrounded by open fields and wooded fence lines along an unpaved country road.

The Thornton-Williams House is a frame, 2-story, Greek Revival-style, I-house-type house with a full-height front porch supported by six tapered square columns with pier bases and simple capitals. Gable and shed roofs are covered with standing seam metal roofing. The symmetrical front facade retains its original 9/9 windows. The front entrance has double doors, five-light sidelights, and an eight-light transom within an elaborate door surround. A sheaf-of-wheat patterned balustrade encloses the balcony. The house is raised on fieldstone piers with brick infill and timber beams. The original chimneys were fieldstone, since reconstructed in brick. The structural system is braced frame with mortise-and-tenon joints. The original well exists beneath the back porch decking. The house has original board walls and ceilings in the upstairs rooms and the floors are wide heart pine. Each fireplace has a tall wood surround and mantel. Doors have grained vertical panels. The house sits on a rise above the driveway, which was formerly a public road. Landscaping is recent with the exception of oak trees, which appear to be as old as the house. The gardens are enclosed with a white picket fence. The only remaining outbuilding is a transverse-crib hay barn 140 feet north of the house. Changes to the original house include the pre-1900 additions to the north side to include a dining room and attached kitchen. The 1970s brought a final addition to the north rear of the house as well as the demolition of most of the outbuildings. Those years also brought interior remodeling including Sheetrock walls, additional bathrooms, moving the kitchen to the dining room, converting the old kitchen to a bedroom, and bricking the chimneys.

The Swint-Hopkins House, one-quarter mile north, is a frame vernacular farmhouse built c.1890 for a Thornton descendant on Thornton family property. It has a front entrance with sidelights. The house is raised on fieldstone piers with block and fieldstone infill. The original well exists beneath back porch decking. The house includes rooms with original board walls, simple picture molding, with some rooms retaining their original heart pine floors. The interior is simple and each of the three fieldstone fireplaces has plain wood surround and mantel. The house has seen many changes due to expansion, including one addition with a dining room, kitchen and bedroom in it. The central hall, once removed, was restored in the 1980s and stairs added to reach the new upstairs bedroom. Landscaping is reflective of early 20th-century farmhouses, utilizing foundation plantings and perennial planted beds. Large camellia trees and azalea bushes are in the front yard. The vegetable garden, pecan trees and pond are typical of local farms. There are two barns, one historic from the 1950s, and one from the 1980s, as well as a swimming pool, and a lake/pond built around 1945.

The stone-walled Thornton Cemetery lies between the two houses; the wire-fenced Mullins Cemetery is located on a hill west of the Swint-Hopkins house, beside the old roadbed of the Whitesville to Chipley Road. The property appears as rural agricultural development. This pattern is continued to the north; however, the surrounding property has been, or is being, developed for residential subdivision and recreational uses.

The two houses and cemeteries are surrounded by open fields and wooded fence lines along an unpaved country road. The Thornton-Williams House is a white-painted, 2-story, Greek Revival-style plantation house with a full-height front porch supported by 6 tapered square piers. The house has exterior clapboard that is lapped except on the front facade and adjacent to the back door; in both locations, the board siding is wider and flush mounted. The porch is supported by 6 full-height tapered squared wood piers, which are decorated with simple capitals. The porch has a simple cornice along its length. Gable and shed roofs are covered with standing seam metal roofing. Windows in the original house are 9/9 single-hung sash. The front facade has eight windows symmetrically oriented on either side of the front entrance; the second story mirrors the first story. The front entrance has double doors, 5-light sidelights, and an 8-light transom, all with elaborate door surround. The second story mirrors the first with entry to the balcony. A sheaf-of-wheat patterned balustrade encloses the balcony. The original house had two 17-foot square rooms upstairs and downstairs with a wide central hall. Subsequent additions added rooms to the rear of the downstairs, preserving and extending the central hall. More recent additions have extended the rear of the house. The two original downstairs rooms and central hall were plastered (now Sheetrock). Upstairs rooms have original board walls and ceilings. The floors are wide heart pine. The upstairs landing floor has been painted in a diamond pattern. The interiors are simple, with little ornamentation.

Each fireplace has a tall wood surround and mantel; fireplaces in the original rooms are more elaborate than later ones. Doors have grained vertical panels. The elaborate door surround at the front entrance and the balustrade of the upstairs balcony have more intricate woodwork.

The house is raised on fieldstone piers with brick infill and timber beams. The original chimneys were fieldstone, since reconstructed in brick. The structural system is braced frame with mortise-and-tenon joints. The original well exists beneath the back porch decking. Heat was supplied by fireplaces in each of the rooms and the house was piped for gas lighting. Rural electrification came in the 1930s as did telephone service, utilizing a crank telephone in the front hall.

The house sits on a rise above the driveway, which was formerly a public road. Landscaping is recent with the exception of oak trees, which appear to be as old as the house. The gardens are enclosed with a white picket fence that extends from both sides of the house around the rear of the building.

The only remaining outbuilding is a transverse crib hay barn which is located approximately 140 feet to the north of the house. The barn is of mortise-and-tenon construction originally but has been through many changes and alterations. It is currently used for storage.

Local oral history indicates that there were four or five tenant houses associated with the Thornton-Williams House, three south of the house and two north; they were on the opposite side of the road. Directly across the road were a cotton house and a buggy shed immediately to its north. There was a cane mill between the house and the barn. Behind the house stood the old kitchen building, with a smokehouse to its north. There was also a store building north of the house adjacent to the road. None of these are extant today.

The property appears as rural agricultural development. This pattern is continued to the north; however, the remaining surrounding property has been, or is being, developed for residential subdivision and recreational uses. Both the Thornton-Williams House and the Thornton Cemetery are accessed through a gated community of single-family houses.

Major alterations to the house occurred prior to 1900 and in the 1970s. Pre-1900 additions were a shed-roofed addition to the rear of the original two-story house and the extension of the north side of the house to include a dining room and attached kitchen. The 1970s brought a final addition to the north rear of the house as well as the demolition of most of the outbuildings. At that time there was interior remodeling which included the addition of a door between the front and rear parlors (formerly a bedroom); addition of a bathroom upstairs and a bathroom off the rear parlor (since removed); Sheetrock on most interior walls (removed upstairs); closets in the upstairs rooms (one of which has been removed); moving the kitchen into what had been the dining room and making the room which had been the kitchen into a master bedroom (this included removal of a door between the dining room and the kitchen; addition of columns in the central hall to carry HVAC system upstairs; removal of picture moldings and addition of crown moldings downstairs; and the rebuilding of the original fieldstone chimneys in brick.

The Swint-Hopkins House, one-quarter mile north, is a painted clapboard vernacular farmhouse built circa 1890 for a Thornton descendant on Thornton family property. The stone-walled Thornton Cemetery lies between the two houses; the wire-fenced Mullins Cemetery is located on a hill west of Swint-Hopkins House, beside the old roadbed of the Whitesville to Chipley Road. The house is painted clapboard. The exterior clapboard is lapped except on the back porch, where it is flush mounted. Turned columns support the front porch. The hip roof has asphalt shingles; the shed porch roofs are tin.

The front entrance is distinctive with 3-lights and panel sidelights. Windows vary in size and age, most being 9/9 double-hung sash. The original central hallway has been maintained through incremental changes. Rooms have been added by infilling portions of the front and back porches. Most rooms have original board walls with simple picture molding. All surfaces are unornamented and painted. Some areas retain original heart pine floors. The interior is simple with little ornamentation. Each of the three fieldstone fireplaces has plain wood surround and mantel.

The house is raised on fieldstone piers with block and fieldstone infill. Three original fieldstone chimneys remain. It has balloon frame construction utilizing sawn timber.

The original well exists beneath the back porch decking. Water was pumped by a gasoline engine into an elevated tank in the back yard to provide running water to the house and barns. Heat was supplied by fireplaces, which were later outfitted with gas space heaters. There was a Delco battery system, replaced by rural electric service in the 1930s. A crank telephone exchange was located in the back hallway.

The location is close to an unpaved county road. Three oak trees in the front yard probably predate the house. The landscaping is reflective of early 20th-century farmhouses, utilizing foundation plantings and perennial planted beds. Large camellia trees and azalea bushes are in the front yard. The vegetable garden, pecan trees and pond are typical of local farms.

There is one remaining work shed/storage building from 1952 built behind the house. The existing barn, adjacent to the storage building, was constructed in the 1980s on the site of a previous barn that had burned. It is used for hay and equipment storage for farm operations. There is also a swimming pool, and an historic lake constructed in 1945.

The location of a number of non-extant outbuildings is known. The Swint-Hopkins House had two or three tenant houses on the hill west of the house. Behind the house were a barn and shop building as well as a smokehouse and Delco house. A cotton house was directly across the road. The sites of the Maddox School, one of the one-room schoolhouses replaced in 1920 by Sunnyside School, and the original roadbed for the Whitesville to Chipley Road are on the property associated with the Swint-Hopkins House.

This house started out as a two-room central hallway tenant house which was enlarged incrementally from 1892 to 1985. It is not possible to date the changes to the house prior to the 1930s. These changes included an addition to the rear of the house which accommodated the dining room, kitchen and one bedroom; this addition extended the original central hall configuration. A shed-roofed addition to the kitchen was added in the late 1920s to offset the loss of kitchen space occasioned by the installation of an indoor bathroom. A gable-roofed addition to the south of the front of the house was for a bedroom. The house was remodeled in the 1950s and the work included the removal of the Original central hall (since restored), Sheetrocking the large room created by the removal of the hallway and the replacement of the mantel in the large room. In the 1980s the central hallway was restored and new stairs added to access an upstairs bedroom. At that time, a portion of the rear porch was utilized for the expansion of the kitchen area.

The Thornton Cemetery is surrounded by a stacked-rock wall on all four sides with an entrance on the west wall. There are some vertical marble tombstones, and some marked only by stacked rocks. The layout and arrangement of the graves are very typical of a rural, family cemetery begun in the antebellum period. There seem to be a number of clusters of burials, suggesting family plots. The Mullins Cemetery is delineated only by a wire fence. There are twelve known grave spaces in a row, side by side. Of these, ten are known, and most have visible markers of marble, such as the obelisks. Some graves are marked only by rock markers.