Chattahoochee County Courthouse
The Chattahoochee County Courthouse was built in 1854 by enslaved people. We do not know who the architect or builders were. It is one of the only antebellum wood-framed courthouses still standing in Georgia, and is one of two remaining from 1800-1860 when the Supreme Court of Georgia was formed. The structure is typical of pre-Civil War courthouses in Georgia. The courtroom is on the second floor and has double stairways leading to it. The building was moved to our Lumpkin site in 1975. Right before the move, it was the only wooden courthouse still in use in Georgia and possibly in the Southeast. Courthouses in the 1800s kept marriage records, land transactions, wills, and records pertaining to road construction as well as held trials. A safe in the judge’s office would have held evidence for cases.The courthouse was formally dedicated on July 4, 1976 by President Jimmy Carter. His maternal greatgrandfather and grandfather, respectively, were Tax Collector and Clerk in this historic building.It currently holds exhibits showing historic objects from the buildings that are still waiting to be moved to the Columbus location from Lumpkin, GA.
Grimes House
Currently used as our staff and volunteer building, the Grimes House is closed to the public. The Grimes House once sat on a plantation and is typical of a wealthy home during the antebellum period. In an interview that took place around 2015, Historic Westville employees had the opportunity to talk to a former resident of the home. The woman, Mrs. Barbour, lived in the home from 1946-1947. Her great-great-grandmother was enslaved in the area and was sold away to Alabama. Mrs. Barbour’s great grandmother, Lucy Watson, was left behind. While African-American women had children, in terms of social construct, they did not have the same right to be mothers as their white enslavers did. They could have their children brutally ripped from them on a whim from their enslaver, and it happened frequently. This story of forced family separation is typical of the chattel slavery that plagued the South during Westville’s time period.
Wells House
The Wells House exhibits architecture that incorporates traditional Native styles and techniques as well as Euro-American. The log cabin was originally built by the Yuchi tribe in Buena Vista, GA. Log cabins were a common Native American home during the historic time period. The interior log structure was originally built with a dirt floor and had a thatched roof with an opening for a central fire pit. The Euro-American dogtrot style was built around the original cabin structure. Due to the Treaty of Indian Springs (1825) and the Treaty of Washington (1827), the Yuchi family that originally inhabited the house lost their land and all their improvements upon it. The result of the Treaty of 1825 was the fifth Georgia land lottery, while the Treaty of 1827 ceded all remaining Muskogee land in Georgia and forced the Native peoples off of their land. Today, the Muscogee-Creek tribe is based in Oklahoma. After the home was purchased by the Wells family, it stayed with them until 1975 when Parker Wells gave it to Westville.
Damascus Methodist Church
The Damascus Church is of the Methodist denomination and was built in 1879. The beautiful painting in the interior of the building was completed by a journeyman painter. Journeymen painters would travel from town to town and would generally be hired to paint houses and stores. It was unusual for one to paint a church but we are thrilled to have an example of this infrequent occurrence. This decor was a rare luxury in the Protestant Deep South. The Methodist Episcopal Church South was the most common branch of Methodism in this area during the mid-nineteenth century. This came about because of a split over the issue of slavery at the 1844 general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. They maintained this organization for a hundred years before reuniting with the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Singer Boot Shop
A person that makes shoes is called a cordwainer. A cobbler is someone that repairs already-made shoes. This building was built in 1838, which makes it one of the older buildings here at Westville. The owner, Johan Singer, was the first shoemaker in the Lumpkin, GA area. Leather comes from animal hides. The Singers also owned a tannery outside of town, where they used red oak and hemlock bark to tan the hides and make usable leather. Boots were the most common shoe worn in the South during this period for both men and women. Most people would only have one pair of shoes they would wear throughout the year. It was not unusual for some people, especially children, to go barefoot or wear shoes that didn’t quite fit them. Historically, women from around Lumpkin would make the tops of their shoes, or the uppers, out of cloth. They would then bring them here so the Singer family could put the soles on. The cheapest shoes would have been reserved for enslaved people and would cost about $1.00 a pair, or in modern money, about $33.
Singer House
The Singer family were German Immigrants who came to South Georgia and were an influential family in Lumpkin. This house is unusual in that it has two seperate entrances. Many of the items you’ll see in the building originally belonged to the Singers. The chest in the bedroom was hand-stamped by a member of the family. In one of the front rooms of the house, there is a quilting frame. It spreads out fabric and is a lot easier to sew on than just letting material drape over your lap. In America, a quilt was originally just a practical item used as a warm blanket. They were also used to cover open or drafty doors and windows. No archaeological evidence survives of the earliest quilts because they were used until they fell apart and were no longer useable. By the 1840s however, quilting, while practical, became an elaborate artform. This was helped by the availability of commercially printed fabric rather than weaving fabrics at home.
Randle General Store
In the 1800s, general stores served the large rural population surrounding small towns and villages. For some farmers, it was considered to be a special and occasional trip to visit their closest general store. It would give them the opportunity to obtain food and necessities they could not make or grow for themselves on their farms. During the 19th century, what was stocked in general stores began to change. During the first part of the century, rural areas of the south were poor, so shelves of stores were almost entirely filled with necessities. The majority of purchasable items would have been locally produced, perishable goods that could be traded. As the economy recovered after the Civil War, more and more luxury items found their way onto the shelves. This was made possible by the expansion of railroads, the advent of mass production, and technological advances such as the refrigerated boxcar. It made these items cheaper and gave them increased availability. When money was scarce in the 19th century, the shopkeeper might extend credit to a regular customer or accept payment in the form of goods, which is called bartering. Farmers would do this with their neighbors as well. For this, and many other reasons, there was a great sense of community among those living in South Georgia.
Paullin Medical Office
William Paullin was a doctor who built and practiced medicine in this building until his death in 1880. While this was the epicenter of his business, he would also make house calls to patients. At the beginning of the 19th century, doctors would use herbs and trees to make medicine. In fact, many of the chemicals we use in medicines today are found in the plants used during this time period. Galen’s medieval concept of the four humors was no longer believed, but the use of bloodletting was one of the leftover signs of the medical philosophy that ruled for almost 2,000 years. In 1842, Ether was used for the first time by Georgian Crawford Williamson Long. This made him the first person to use general anesthesia during surgery. During the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, America started to use ether for treatment on the battlefield. It was officially issued by the US Army in 1849 until its popularity was taken over by chloroform in the American Civil War. Neither are used as anesthesia today but can be found in cold medicine and mouthwash. While these were important advances in the medical field that happened during our time period, American doctors and the public tended to not trust science. The use of for-profit diploma mills debased the trust Americans had in doctors. There were no FDA regulations at the time, which meant medicines weren’t regulated. As long as you held a patent for your bottle, you could sell pretty much whatever you wanted as medicine. The legacy of the snake oil salesman is a result of this.
West Wood Shop
If you go inside the shop, you’ll see a large piece of machinery along one side. This is a hand-cranked lathe. Woodworkers still use these today, but the electric versions. It spins a block of wood so that it can be evenly carved. A carpenter would learn his trade as an apprentice, which means they would study under and work for someone that was already professionally performing the trade. They would serve their apprenticeship for about 4-7 years before becoming skilled enough to set up shop for themselves. It was also common to travel and perform this trade for whoever needed it in whatever town you happened to be in before moving on.The type of wood that grows here, and that a woodworker would have used here in The Chattahoochee Valley is called Longleaf Pine. Not only was it used for wood, but the needles of the tree can be made into baskets. Other products were made from the tree such as turpentine, rosin, pitch, tar, paint, and soap. During the 19th century, America, and the South, in particular, was the world leader in the business of what are called naval stores, which made items such as turpentine from tapping the trees. This industry was extremely popular in Chattahoochee Valley, If you were not a landowner, yeoman farmer, or town-dweller, odds are that you worked in the naval store business if you were a man.
Climax Presbyterian Church
In its years at Westville in Lumpkin, many programs and weddings have taken place in this building-including a funeral service. Presbyterians were among the earliest immigrants to America. When Georgia was founded as a colony in 1733, individual Presbyterians were among the first arrivals. Highland Scottish troops, recruited by General James Oglethorpe to fight the Spanish in Florida, were the first group of Presbyterians to arrive in Georgia. By the mid-1700s Presbyterian churches had been established in the state and were active on the Georgia frontier. In the 1830s several issues, including slavery, divided Georgia's Presbyterians into Old School and New School churches. In December of 1861, presbyteries from throughout the South met at the First Presbyterian Church in Augusta and organized the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America, which separated them from the national Presbyterian Church. After the Civil War, Presbyterians in the South became members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, also known as the Southern Presbyterian Church.
Kiser House
Kiser is not displayed as a historic home, but a place to serve food. At the beginning of the 19th century, people didn’t cook in ovens. They had to cook over an open fire. This is called open-hearth cooking. We often have demonstrations of this in our McDonald House kitchens. Southern Cooking would have been and still is, a blend of food cultures. Many dishes that we love today-such as barbeque-are a blend of African, European, and Native American culinary traditions. The main food products eaten in Georgia, whether free or enslaved, were corn and pork. Sweet potatoes and beans were also high on the list with a number of vegetables grown on a plantation or a homestead. While Historic Westville is known for serving gingerbread and lemonade, these would not be items typically consumed in a rural town like Westville in the early to mid 19th century. Gingerbread was common in New England, not Georgia. The ingredients would have been difficult to grow here or expensive to purchase. Lemonade was slightly more common, but still only consumed perhaps once a year for very special occasions. As the century progressed, access to these items would have been more achievable as trade expanded and ingredients became cheaper. However, in order to honor Westville’s roots, we are planning on selling these food items to the public in this shop eventually.
Woodruff Blacksmith Shop
Our blacksmith shop is a replica modeled after the Stubbs Blacksmith Shop, which was a functioning blacksmith's shop in Lumpkin built circa 1850. The forge, which is the large brick portion of the building, uses coals and air to heat metal so it becomes malleable. Oxygen is crucial in making the metal hot enough to work with. The large block of iron sitting on the tree stump is an anvil. A blacksmith uses it as a base and guide to shaping iron. The other major tool that would be used is a hammer. With these simple items, many products can be made such as nails, S-hooks, and knives. Blacksmiths were an essential part of a town or farming community in the 19th century, just like what we portray at Westville.In 1973, a groundbreaking blacksmithing conference was held at Historic Westville that resulted in the creation of the Artist-Blacksmith Association of North America (ABANA).
Adams Clothier & Fine Fashions
In a rural town like Westville, clothing would have been made by hand. Cotton was the most commonly used fiber for fabric in this area. In the wiregrass region, which is southern Georgia, parts of Alabama, and northern Florida, it was mostly grown on smaller, family-owned farms as opposed to large plantations. Sheep and goats would have been standard farm animals and would have been sheared of their wool once a year. The process of turning fiber into thread or yarn is called spinning and would have taken place on a wheel. Two skeins spun in a day was considered to be a good day’s work, with a professional spinner being paid 8 cents a day, or $2.14 in today’s money, along with their room and board. In the 1800s, thread would need to be dyed by using natural dye. On display, we show black walnut shells, Indigo, and carmine-which is a red that was created from grinding up beetle shells. This dye is still used today to color food. A loom would weave thread into fabric. Some common fabrics that were used in the 19th century were: twill, Kentucky Jean, linsey-woolsey, coutil, and linen. Paper patterns were not mass-produced until 1860. People that made clothes, either in a shop or at home, would have to make their own.While sewing machines were invented in the 1700s, they didn’t work very well. The Singer sewing machine, which worked much better, was patented in 1851. Throughout the last half of the 1800s, sewing machines slowly replaced hand sewing-although for much of the period, detail and certain finishing work was still done by hand. A dressmaker in Westville’s time period would be participating in one of the few professions that were open to women. It was also acceptable for free Black women. In Georgia, they would have worked roughly 60 hours per week for about 50 cents per day in the 1880s or $12.64 per day in 2020. Occasionally, enslaved women would be trained as a dressmaker.
Moye Print Shop
While paper is made out of wood pulp today, it would have been made from cloth in the first half of the 1800s. The first wood pulp paper mill in the US opened in 1867. A family would keep all of their small cloth scraps to make into anything useful for their home and sell them to a papermaker or mill. In 1456, Gutenberg, of the Gutenberg Bible fame, invented the printing press - the first in Europe with mechanical moveable type. His bible used parchment that had to be made with the skins of 300 sheep, which was incredibly expensive and impractical for one book. To fix this problem, the use of making paper from linen rags came about. China also used silk as a means of paper from early on. In America during Westville’s time period, paper would primarily be made as a cotton and linen blend, with book paper being mainly made with cotton. Paper was much more expensive than it is today. Looking at old letters, they have mistakes crossed out, ink stains, and even lines of text crossing vertically what someone had already written horizontally! It makes letters hard to read for historians but is fascinating proof of how valuable paper was to the people living in the 19th century.
Billingslea House
David Lewis of Whitesville, GA donated the Billingslea House to Historic Westville during the move to Columbus. It is now used to house the administrative offices of the organization. Construction began on this house in 1845 on land purchased in Harris County, Georgia by brothers John and Winston Billingslea. Winston built this home for himself, his new bride, the widow Mary Anne Johnson, and her two daughters, Malinda and Mariah. The wood used for this home was cut from the land it was built on. This house was built of heart pine by enslaved laborers.
