Historical Restoration

Kirby-Quinton Cabin
Jasper, GA

Under the direction of the late Tom Quinton, educator, in 1975 the cabin was constructed from logs that had been used in the original log cabin of Stephen and Mary Mann Kirby on the Old Federal Road about two miles south of Jasper. Mr. Quinton frequently used the cabin in instructing Pickens County students about their mountain heritage.

When the secession of the Southern States became imminent, Stephen Kirby was residing in the area of Spartanburg, South Carolina with his wife and several adult or near adult children. Concerned for his family and slaves, Kirby decided to move to the remote area of North Georgia. However, his wife and children elected to remain in South Carolina. Bringing the slaves who chose to join him, Stephen Kirby packed up possessions and moved into the area of Pickens County in 1862. Neighbors of Mr. Kirby included the Mann family. On October 3, 1869, Stephen married Mary Mann, after divorcing his wife in South Carolina. Mary was 33 years his junior. They resided on "Dun Bean Hill" and raised Mr. Kirby's second family. Stephen Kirby and Mary Mann Kirby were buried in the city cemetery near Jasper United Methodist Church.

Stephen Kirby, a successful farmer and large landholder in the county, was active in civic affairs and donated land for the first school in Jasper - Kirby Academy. He also made a large contribution to the construction of the Methodist church in Jasper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honey Creek Cabin
McDonough, GA

A Brief History Honey Creek Cabin was built in 1835 by some of the first settlers in Jackson County, Georgia. According to local lore, it was the coldest February anyone could remember, so the builders took their time, dressing each log with care and skill. It was constructed after the style of cabins at nearby Fort Yargo, one and one-half stories high, using the traditional dimensions of sixteen by twenty feet, with gun ports to fire on renegade Indians and wolves that terrorized the area. One of the first residents of the cabin was Buddy Chandler, a well respected but rather eccentric member of the community who would answer a knock at his door in his pajamas, wearing a long night cap, and placing the candle he was holding on top of his head. In 1967 a road widening project threatened to demolish the cabin, but Harold and Daisy Cox, both originally from England but then residents of Stone Mountain where Harold was Director of Horticulture at Stone Mountain Park, heard about the cabin and wanted to buy it and reconstruct it on their property near Atlanta. Daisy asked the owner how old the cabin was; when he told her about one hundred fifty years, in jest she offered him a dollar for every year it had been standing, and to her amazement, he accepted—so the Coxes bought the cabin for $150, took it apart like a Lincoln Log toy, loaded it up on two long-bed chicken trucks, and dumped it in a pile at the top of their driveway. Over the next few months, using a rope and pulley system, Harold single-handedly re-erected the cabin, but with a new twist. Because many of the original logs were weak from wear and neglect, he reduced the cabin to a single storey building, substituting sound logs for rotten ones. To avoid hiding the floor joists—entire pine trees—the Coxes dug a wedge out of a hillside (with picks and shovels), built a full basement, and set the cabin on the top of the structure so that the floor joists are the ceiling beams of what is now an English-style pub. On the side of the original cabin that had been cut out and removed so it could be used as a barn, the Coxes built a chimney, starting in the basement, running up to the roof of the cabin, with a large open fireplace in the basement faced with stone from the surrounding fields, and an arched Dutch oven in the cabin itself which is non-functional to discourage fire. The bricks in the oven—as well as those in other parts of the building—have their own special history as they were collected from the ruins of a chimney in the local area where during the Civil War the lady of the house had been forced to bake biscuits for Union troops raiding farms as they swept through Georgia. In the summer of 2012, another chapter began in the history of the cabin. Earl Windsor was hired to replace several logs and a sill that had been severely damaged by termites and wood rot. Mr. Windsor and his crew expertly refit the replacement logs so that the restoration closely matches the original structure. In addition, they removed the concrete chinking, installing Perma-Chink which naturally expands and contracts with the logs and provides better insulation.

One of the most important features about Mr. Windsor’s approach to the project was his genuine appreciation and respect for the historical significance of the building. He made a special effort to insure that the “new” logs were seasoned and, in fact, historic in their own right: the replacement sill came from a one-hundred year old church in North Carolina, and the side logs were once in a cabin built by the Cherokees. Mr. Windsor also returned the inside of the cabin to a more original state by removing the panel boards to expose the log walls, and he replaced the fabricated shutters on the outside windows with functional shutters made from wide oak boards. Today the cabin stands as the centerpiece of a bird, wildlife, and wildflower sanctuary, a testament to what individuals can accomplish with little money but a great deal of vision and hard work.