HCx Preservation

10/25/2025

Our Lady of Good Hope Church, circa 1876. Located just inland from the Skidaway River, this one room chapel retains its original form and simple detailing. Restored in the late 1800s as well as 1970s, today it operates as a "chapel of ease" for Catholics in the Isle of Hope.

10/23/2025

We are pleased to announce that the first phase of the preservation project for the cemetery of enslaved persons within the Waverly Hall city limits will begin next week

This meaningful work is made possible through the generous volunteer support of Fortson Tree Co., whose contributions are deeply appreciated.

We look forward to providing updates as the project progresses and to welcoming additional volunteers who wish to assist in preserving this important part of our shared history.

Please feel free to message us with any questions or comments.

01/17/2025

MISSING: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS HEADSTONE?

We’re searching for the missing headstone of John Milner, a Revolutionary War veteran buried in Harris County, Georgia. This headstone is a VA-issued “shield” marker, placed around the early 1900s. It went missing in the early 1990s, and its whereabouts remain a mystery.

The Milner Cemetery was located off Milner Road near Cleola, Georgia, between present-day Waverly Hall and Shiloh, Georgia. Milner Road ends at Oak Mountain Road, and the cemetery site was reported to be about a mile down Milner Rd from Oak Mountain Rd, on a hillside near the homesite of Chet Milner, whose house still stands today.

Stories of what happened to the headstone vary. Some say it was stolen and dumped in a creek. Others say it was disturbed by a logging operation and removed for safekeeping, with plans to return it later. Either way, the headstone is missing from where it should be.

If you’re in the Harris County, Georgia area, have you seen this headstone? It might be out of place in the woods, stored in an old barn, or forgotten somewhere. This is an important piece of history, and we’d love to bring it back to its rightful place.

Share this post—maybe the magic of Facebook will help us locate it!

01/02/2025

12/27/2024

Enjoy researching historic sites?
This website is a great resource!
(Select No for public access - no password required)

GNAHRGIS is an interactive Web-based registry and geographical information system designed to catalog information about the natural, archaeological, and historic resources of Georgia.

12/25/2024

Wishing a safe and happy holiday for all!

Wartime Christmas in Georgia. The banner with two stars in the window probably indicates this couple has two children serving in the Armed Forces.

Lamar Q. Ball Collection
Atlanta Journal

12/23/2024

Women’s struggle for equality took a major step forward on this day in 1836. The first college in the world to grant degrees to women was chartered in Macon — an incredibly progressive idea for the times.

Now known as Wesleyan College, it began as Georgia Female College after a group of Macon businessmen raised $9,000 for a women’s college that would offer coursework similar to that offered to men. Unlike other female institutions, Georgia Female College students would receive the equivalent of the bachelor’s degree when they completed their coursework.

The Methodist Conference agreed to adopt the school, and it was renamed Wesleyan Female College in 1843 in honor of John Wesley. The school opened in January 1839 and graduated its first class 18 months later.

Wesleyan graduates include Mary McKay, the first woman in Georgia to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree, and Viola Ross Napier, the first woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court of Georgia, and one of the first women elected to the Georgia Legislature.

The world’s oldest women’s college was chartered on December 23, 1836, today in Georgia history…
Via: https://www.todayingeorgiahistory.org/tih-georgia-day/wesleyan-college/

Georgia on My Mind curated by Lisa Land Cooper

12/23/2024

The Welcome P. Duke Log House illustrates the importance of historic preservation. Though it was identified as having great cultural and historical value, it was sadly dismantled.

(Information obtained from National Register of Historic Places NRIS Ref # 99000803 dated 7-23-1999)

Located in a rural setting in Harris County in western Georgia, approximately one-and-one-half mile east of the town of Hamilton, the Welcome P. Duke Log House was constructed in ca.1830 on what was then the Georgia frontier.

The Welcome P. Duke Log House is a single-pen, log house with a raised-seam metal gable roof, hand-hewn logs, half-dovetail notching, large exterior end stacked-stone chimney on the east facade, and stone pier foundation. The house is on its original site. The front and rear door ways are located in the center of the north and south facades and run straight through the building. The one extant door is crudely made of five vertical boards with three cross boards. The fireplace is stacked stone with no mantel. The floors are wood plank. There is one window opening, with no sash, in the west wall. The logs do not have chinking, nor is there evidence that chinking ever existed; however, there are some boards on the front facade and the interior which were nailed between the logs which served to insulate the building.

There are no extant outbuildings associated with the house. The house is in a small clearing surrounded by young forest. Approximately 500 feet north of the house, in this same clearing, is a modern house which is outside the boundary of this nomination. There has been no archaeological testing done on the property; therefore, archaeological potential is not known. However, there may be archaeological remains of the second Duke family house which was built in the 1870s and burned in the 20th century.

Narrative statement of significance (areas of significance)
The Welcome P. Duke Log House is significant in architecture as an intact and rare surviving example of a single-pen log house with half-dovetail notching, hand-hewn logs, and stone fireplace. Although once a common sight on Georgia’s countryside, log buildings are now considered rare and fragile resources. In the Georgia Historic Resources Survey Database of 43,951 resources, 417 log buildings have been identified. Of these log buildings, there are only 157 single-pen dwellings.

Many log buildings have either been demolished, moved, neglected to the point of ruin, or encapsulated in a larger building. Therefore, the Welcome P. Duke House is especially significant since it retains its original one-room plan and historic materials in its original location. According to Fred B. Kniffen and Henry Glassie in “Building in Wood in the Eastern United States: A Time-Place Perspective,” in half-dovetailing the head of the notch slopes upward but the bottom is flat. The half-dovetail notch is as effective as the full-dovetail but much easier to make. In Georgia, as in other parts of the United States, the half-dovetail notch is more commonly found.

The log building was constructed ca.1830 after the Georgia Land Lottery of 1827. In 1865, Welcome Parks Duke (ca.181 5-1 888) purchased the property for his family and for use as a farm. The family lived in the single-room log house until they built a larger house nearby and used the log house for a kitchen.

The second Duke house has since burned. The farm associated with the house was originally 202 1/2 acres obtained in 1827 when Mr. Duke purchased the property; however, throughout the years the Dukes bought and sold portions of land changing the acreage. The house was owned by members of the Duke family up until 1994 when the current owners purchased the property.

Welcome P. Duke was born in ca.1815 in Troup County, Georgia and married Mary Hickey in Harris County, Georgia in ca.1835. They had 8 children. Welcome P. Duke and his family appear on the 1840, 1850, and 1860 census of Troup County in the Salem Community. Shortly after the Civil War, in which several of his sons were killed, Welcome Duke moved his family to this property outside of Hamilton.

In 1877 his schedule of property listed one black horse, 1 boy mule, 1 yellow cow and calf, 1 white back and belly cow and calf, 3 yearlings, 3 shoats, 1 wagon, farming utensils, 15 bee stands, and other house furniture and utensils. Welcome P. Duke lived on this property until his death in 1888. After that his heirs and wife lived on the property. In 1943, his daughter Mary Duke was the property owner.

(ref cited)
Eaddy, Mary Ann and Carole Moore, eds. Georgia’s Living Places: Historic Houses in Their Landscaped Setting.
Historic Preservation Section, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, 1991 Kniffen, Fred B. and Henry Glassie.
“Building in Wood in the Eastern United States: A Time-Place Perspective,” Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture. Edited by Dell Upton and John Michael Vlach. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.
Lloyd, Barbara and Richard David Lloyd. “William P. Duke Log House (Lloyd Log House),” Historic Property Information Form, September 29, 1994.
On file at the Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Atlanta, Georgia, with supplemental information.

12/22/2024

✨The original records of Bethlehem Baptist in rural Harris County were burned in 1906 but the church has been able to capture at least some of the early church history. The history tells us the church was organized in 1828, making Bethlehem one of the earliest churches in Harris County.

📸Photo courtesy of Wolfgang Enneker

12/22/2024

12/21/2024

William and Ann Copeland, Jr., House (c.1856)

(Information obtained from GA Historic Resources 1988-2005, and NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES 2008)

Originally the "Blind" Billy Copeland house. Copeland was supposedly hanged by Federal troops in the stairwell but survived although he was blinded as a result. The house was used as a restaurant for some time and some changes were made.

The Copeland family arrived in Harris County during the early 1820s. They were among the first white settlers to inhabit a territory that had been surrendered by a faction of Lower Creek Indians following the War of 1812. William Copeland, Sr., a native of Virginia, moved to North Carolina and then to Georgia during the early 1800s. Copeland arrived in west Georgia during the early 1820s several years before the creation of Harris County in 1827.
During the next three decades, Copeland, Sr. amassed more than 7,000 acres of land and 38 slaves. At the time of his death in 1859, Copeland's estate was valued at $61,544.

William Copeland, Jr. (1810-1887) was born in Georgia and by 1850 had established a 400-acre plantation on land owned by his father in Harris County. Sometime during the mid-1830s, Copeland married Ann Nancy Swanson (1814-1893). The couple raised seven children: four daughters and three sons.

In 1856, Copeland, Jr. began buying land in the vicinity of his father's holdings. His reason for relocating is unknown; however, he may have wanted to establish a homestead separate from his aging father's plantation. Copeland likely built the extant house shortly after purchasing the property.

By 1860, William Copeland, Jr. had amassed 2,100 acres of land valued at $12,000 and 74 slaves. He was one of the wealthiest men in Harris County. Like many antebellum-era planters who strove toward achieving self-sufficiency, Copeland practiced mixed agriculture that balanced the needs of household consumption with the demand for cash income and financial credit. His principal cash crops were cotton and wheat.

During the Civil War, two of Copeland's sons enlisted in the Confederate Army. John R. Copeland enlisted (although it is possible that he was conscripted) in Johnston's Company, 5th Georgia Infantry, State Guards. The Georgia State Guard saw action during the Atlanta and the March to the Sea campaigns in 1864. During the Battle of Griswoldville (November 22, 1864), John R. Copeland died while taking part in a senseless charge upon well-prepared Federal lines that claimed the lives of hundreds of state guard soldiers. Copeland's body was returned to his father who buried him at Shiloh Baptist Church.

John's younger brother, William B. Copeland, III, enlisted (or was conscripted) in Company E, 2 State Line Brigade. During the Battle of Jonesboro, Copeland was blinded in both eyes.

Following the Civil War, the Copeland family recovered from their wartime losses. Like other postwar planters, Copeland transitioned his antebellum plantation from an operation that had depended upon enslaved labor to a postbellum farm that functioned using an array of day laborers, tenants, and eventually sharecroppers.
In 1870, Copeland paid over $2,000 in wages to day laborers. That same year, his farm only managed to produce a meager 70 bales of cotton (65 percent less cotton than his farm had produced one decade earlier).

William Copeland, Jr. died April 1, 1887. He was survived by his wife and two of his seven children. His obituary recalled that
"Mr. William Copeland, one of the oldest and most highly
respected citizens of Harris County, died at his home in Valley
Plains district this morning at 2 o'clock. He has been in feeble
health for a long time and those of his household knew that his
end must be near, but his death came unexpectedly. Yesterday
morning he arose and dressed, but during the day he grew sick
and at 4 o'clock the members of his family were summoned to his
bedside."

At the time of his death, Copeland owned 2,300 acres. His wife, Ann Copeland, inherited most of his property. After her death in 1893, her daughter-in-law, Annie Kilgore Copeland, wife of "Blind Billie" Copeland inherited the house and 140 acres.

The couple had four daughters. Annie died in 1900. Her disabled husband then transferred ownership of the property to their daughter, Irene Copeland Sparks. Between 1912 and 1946, the ownership of the house passed through the Copeland family, from Irene Sparks to her uncle, Alexander Copeland, and then to J. T. and D. H. Copeland. It was during this time that the boll weevil changed the face of Harris County from a thriving agricultural area to subsistence farms and woodlands.

By the time the house and its remaining 140 acres were purchased by the Dunn family in 1946, it was in extremely dilapidated condition. Most of the changes to the property occurred during the ensuing 15 years as the Dunns renovated the house for family living and then as a home/restaurant. Known as the Rebel Inn in the 1970s, the restaurant was used mostly for private parties. The Dunns sold the property in 1980 to Larry and Emily W**d.

During the late 1980s, they sold the house to Daniel Martin, who used it as a secondary residence. In 2015 the property again changed hands to its current owner.

12/20/2024

HCx Preservation offers expert consulting services in the restoration, identification, and documentation of historic sites, including architectural structures and grave sites. Our services are available in exchange for monetary donations, ensuring that the preservation of historical integrity remains accessible and sustainable. We provide thorough evaluations and tailored strategies to protect the significance of each site for future generations.

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