Category Archives: Black History

Union Hill AME Church-Ellaville, Georgia

The congregation was founded in 1867 by Reverend Jessie Dinkins.

Mill Bethel Missionary Baptist Church-Stewart County, Georgia

While I’ve seen this church identified as an AME church, I believe it to be a Baptist Church. Based on obituaries, it was called this until as late as 2017. I can only locate obituaries that refer to this building as Mill Bethel Church or Mill Bethel Baptist Church. According to an announcement in The Ledger and Enquirer in 1980, the church was celebrating it’s 108th anniversary. While I date the building to the early 1900s, the congregation seems to have been founded in 1872.

African American Heritage Site-Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia

The Sautee Nacoochee Center is a cultural and heritage museum for the Sautee and Nacoochee Valleys in White County, Georgia. On-site, there is a restored slave cabin that used to sit on the land of Edwin Poore Williams, an early settler who benefitted from Native Americans being forced off their land.

He relocated to the area from North Carolina, bringing people he enslaved with him and his family. According to the 1860 slave census, Williams enslaved 18 people. It is believed that three cabins housed these men, women, and children. This particular cabin measured 16 x 28 feet.

The blacksmith shop

Beginning in 2002, the cabin was methodically dismantled at its original site and reassembled where it currently sits. The cabin was sympathetically restored using original materials or sourcing materials close to the original. A full detailed account of the restoration can be found here.

Vinnie’s Cabin-Cartersville, Georgia

Behind a beauty salon in Cartersville sits a rare extant “urban” slave cabin. It was one of ten cabins that sat on the property of Elijiah and Cornelia Field.

After the Civil War, Vinnie Salters Johnson moved to Cartersville and cooked for the Fields family. She lived in this cabin with her son. It became the home of Vinnie Salters Johnson and her son, Cafaries Johnson.

The cabin was restored a few years ago after the roof and floor collapsed. The walls are original to the cabin.

Mount Salem Missionary Baptist Church-Rocky Face, Georgia

This church is a historic African American church in Rocky Face, Georgia. The land was sold by W. J. Copeland in 1886 to church trustees. The building was constructed in 1897 to be a church and school.

Information was pulled from this article in the Dalton Daily Citizen-News.