Willette White Mote pointed to the corner in the original kitchen
of the Fort Hollingsworth / White House in Banks County. "I was born
right there," she said almost reverently, "in what we used as a bed-
room." The family called it "the dark room," since it had only one
small window to allow sunlight into the dark confines. Willette and
her sisters Peggy White Goodson and Edith White Goodson were showing
me around the stucture which is probably the most historic in the
county.
Fort Hollingsworth is the only one of its kind still in existence
in Banks County, and the only original pioneer fort remaining in Georgia
that is still near its original condition. In recognition of its historic
status, the landmark was named to the National Register of Historic
Places in April of 1998.
In the 1940s and '50s, Beacber and Mellie White began raising their
children in what was, by then, called "the White house." Beacher had
added shed-roofed bedrooms on each side of the old pioneer fort,
completely enclosing the original log structure.
The children noticed that strangers occasionally stopped by to admire
the old building and take pictures. "People would point at the founda-
tions of the fort, apparently thinking the wooden log portion was gone,"
Willette explains. "They didn't realize the whole fort was still there.
We knew, of course, but we weren't much interested in it until I started
researching its history."
|
|
 |
Peggy White Goodson
stands beside a
meal/flour chest
built circa 1936 by
Beacher White when
his family lived
in the historic
structure. |
Between 1782 and 1797, when white settlers were making treaties with
the Native Indians to define Georgia's boundaries, whites built forts to
protect settlers living on the frontier. When misunderstandings took
place between the two parties, hostilities sometimes broke out and the
settlers needed protective quarters. Fort Hollingsworth was built for
that purpose.
When whites first migrated to Franklin County between 1783 and 1788,
they settled (by mistake or otherwise) on land that was Indian territory
fixed by the treaty of 1785. A survey ultimately revealed that the sett-
lers had trespassed, and the Cherokee Nation demanded that the settlers
leave.
William W. Wofford and Jacob Hollingsworth both moved from North Car-
olina to Franklin County in 1792, each building a fort. The area came
to be known as Wofford's Settlement. According to an account, Colonel
Wofford and others, upon learning that the settlement lay in Indian ter-
ritory, petitioned Georgia Governor James Jackson to either relocate the
line out of Indian territory, or to protect the settlers and their pos-
sessions in that area against possible Indian attack.
Supposedly, Wofford rode his horse to Washington to talk with authori-
ties about the situation. After further negotiations, the Indians ceded a
strip of land four miles wide to the state of Georgia. This property was
called the "Four Mile Purchase" in 1804, and it included the Wofford Set-
tlement. Originally, a twenty-foot-wide strip of felled trees marked the
line. The United States agreed to pay the Cherokees $4,000 immediately
and $1,000 annually for the property rights.
The Indian troubles in that area ended sometime around 1796 as the
frontier moved further westward, and the forts in the vicinity of Wofford
settlement were converted into log farm houses. Many of the Woffords and
the Hollingsworths and their descendants packed up their belongings and
moved westward too, abandoning Fort Hollingsworth. Wofford's Fort burned
sometime thereafter.
In 1857, Colonel Robert McMillan who had immigrated from Ireland in
l831, bought the Fort Hollingsworth property from Wofford's grandson, W.B.
Wofford. In 1861, McMillan sold the property to John Lane who lived in a
log cabin behind the house.
Lane went off to war a month later after the conflict had begun. He
never returned to the old fort he had purchased. He died of gunshot wounds
inflicted by his own men as he returned at dusk from a freshwater spring
in Tennessee. The site of his burial was only recently discovered.
In 1862, Joshua White (brother-in-law of John Lane) bought a tract of
land (including the fort) from the Lane estate and he and his wife moved
into the old fort. They built an addition to the two-story single-pen fort
that caused it to resemble other farm houses of the mid-1800s. A dogtrot
linked the two structures.
In 1903, children of Joshua and Katharine Lane White inherited the
property that eventually became known as "the White house." In 1936,
Beacher White, a farmer and one of the grandsons, bought the house. He
enclosed the dogtrot between the two parts of the house. Recognizing the
historical value of the fort, he wouldn't allow it to be painted or
changed much, desiring to preserve it as much as possible in its original
state.
"We never understood that when we were growing up, but now I'm so
glad," Willette says. "Mother did talk him into a little paint here and
there in the living room and the kitchen, but the upstairs fort walls are
are still polished white with mud from the hole down on the branch."
Water was always a problem at the old fort. Several wells were dug
over the years, but they all had to be filled in when the walls in the
shaft collapsed. Family members brought water from a spring southwest of
the house. There, water flowed into a stone bowl just deep enough for a
bucket. Instead of hauling water to the house to do the laundry, family
members carried the clothing to a wash place near the spring.
Across the stream from the "wash place," a hole in the bank contains
the pure white clay that people called the "white mud hole." They used
the clay to polish the fireplaces during spring cleaning and for chinking
between the logs in the fort.
An Indian ceremonial ground also once existed near the spring, but it
was disturbed and altered in the 1930s when timber was cut and dragged
across the site.
An old pioneer wagon road, however, is still visible in places where
it crossed the yard of the fort, passing the barn and continuing on down
through the fields and across Mountain Creek. It continued on to the old
Hollingsworth Store which once existed across the road from the site at
which Irvin's Store stands today. The old trail crossed U.S. Highway 442
near Harmony Church and continued on to the Wofford Fort on Broad River.
Right up until 1990, someone lived in the old Hollingsworth fort.
"When we decided to restore it, we started by removing eight layers of
linoleum," Peggy Goodson laughs. She said that everything that had been
added onto the fort was removed, but "for convenience, we left the bath-
room and enough electric to brew a pot of coffee for visitors." Exceptions
were also made for a roughly-constructed pie safe and the meal chest for
flour and meal that Beacher White had built in the kitchen.
The room above the kitchen (the upper level of the fort) once was the
girls' bedroom during their teen years, and is now empty. The floors have
wide and irregular size boards. "People used what they had," Peggy
comments.
Beyond a mulberry tree in the back yard (that still produces fruit),
a cellar house served as a storm pit to protect the family when a storm
threatened. The celler also served as a cool storage place for milk in
the summer. (Milk also was taken to the spring for cool storage.) On the
ground level above the cellar, the family spread straw, then layered
potatoes in the summer, covering them with dirt to preserve them for
winter eating.
A visit to the Fort Hollingsworth/White house offers real treat for
history buffs, because it looks much the same today as it did in the
1860s. Due to Beacher White's foresight, visitors can see the tiny window
in the side of the house where pioneer settlers watched for Indians. A
single stone spans the top of the fireplace and the original mantel sits
above it in the front room. The kitchen still has its original fireplace
too.
"The logs and rafters were put together with wooden pegs in the 1793
portion of the building," Willette adds. "The nails in the 1860s portion
were hand-made - probably on the premises - because they're square."
In 1980, the children of Beacher and Mellie White inherited the pro-
perty. They recognize its historical value and want to share it with the
public. A restoration is on-going at the site, and a "Friends Of The Fort"
organization - a tax-exempt non-profit organization - has been formed to
manage the house and property. The family hopes to develop an Interpre-
tive Life Center to provide instruction on life of the 1700s and 1800s
in Georgia.
To get to Fort Hollingsworth, take Highway 441 from Homer approximately
eight miles northward to Wynn Lake Road. Turn left. The house is approxi-
mately two miles away on the right. Visits are allowed by appointment
Thursday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and on Sundays from
2:00 p.m. to 4.OO p.m. For more information, call (706) 754-4538 or
(706) 776-2419.
