The Smoak House once served as a boarding house for people who were traveling to Glenn Springs, South Carolina to experience the healing waters of the Glenn Springs. While the Glenn Spring Hotel was more known, the Smoak House provided easy access as it was across the street from the springs. The home was built in 1890. Based on ads, it doesn’t seem to have become a boarding house around 1910.
The modified Greek Revival house on McDuffie Street is known as the Poppe House. Located in Anderson, South Carolina, there seems to be some conflict in its history so I will share two different stories. According to the 1971 National Register of Historic Places application, the Poppe House was built in 1853 by Elizabeth Earle for her son and new wife. It was then sold to Charles Henry Julius and Alice Poppe in 1862, a couple from the Alsace-Lorraine region of Germany.
A 1973 article in the Independent Daily Mail states that J. T. Harrison built the house on land formerly owned by Elizabeth Hampton Harrison Earle. Elizabeth Earle had given her son, Captain Samuel G. Earle, and his wife, Kate, the land, who then had a house built on it. Samuel Earle moved to Arkansas to serve in the Civil War. Captain Earle sold the house to J. T. (sometimes noted as J. L. in other articles) Harrison in 1859. Harrison then sold the house to J. B. Earle, uncle of Samuel G. Earle. J. B. Earle then sold the house to Charles Henry Julius and Alice Poppe, who sold the home to H. S. Carpenter in 1903. Carpenter then sold it to the Charles and Olive Minor family in 1922.
The bricks were made by enslaved labor. (Here is an interesting article on fingerprints in slave labor bricks.)According to the 1850 slave census, the Earle family held over 200 people in bondage. I am not finding specific slave census records for a JT or JL Harrison, but they exist for a James Harrison in Anderson County. This person held approximately 20 people in bondage.
As the longest owners, Julius and Alice Poppe lived there for over fifty years. They purchased the home in 1862. The NRHP application mentions that the couple were from Alsace-Lorraine, part of Germany. However, Alice hailed from England, as shown on her headstone, which is linked above. Julius owned a store downtown known for the variety of goods it sold.
Alice Poppe was blind. She would place glass bottles in the flower beds and use her cane to tap around her garden. A later owner of the house, Merrill Bamfield, shared in a news article (Anderson Independent-Mail, January 18, 1981) that he would still find the occasional bottle in the yard.
Finally, the Poppe House was photographed in 1933 for the Historic American Buildings Survey, the nation’s first documentation and preservation program. The project’s goal was to document “the builder’s art.”
This Greek Revival home was built in the 1840s for Dr. William Lockhart Cowan. William Cowan and his wife, Anna, had eight children. Five of them lived to adulthood. Their second eldest daughter, Laura, married a local doctor, Dr. Robert Fleming. Fleming moved into the Cowan home. Known as a sleepwalker, he awoke one night and fell off the balcony. Paralyzed by the fall, he and his wife moved to live with his relative to get care. Her mother and sister followed them.
The family sold the home to Jacob Ramser, a Swiss craftsman. Ramser was known for his carpentry skills. He built the first theater in town.
The Ramser family lived in the home until they sold it to the White family, who turned it into a funeral home. The Colonel White and Sons Funeral Home was in business until 2004. The building has been vacant since. It is listed as an Alabama Place of Peril. It’s sustained damage from storms, and the roof has been breached.
It was documented in 1934 as part of the Historic American Building Survey. It is one of the last remaining Greek Revival homes in the area.
For people familiar with the Sautee Nacoochee Indian Mound, they may not have seen the numerous photos from the dig. While I was familiar with the survey conducted of the mound in the early 1900s, I never thought to look at it until recently when I was trying to find information about a church in White County and stumbled across a pdf of the report.
I didn’t read the document fully, but some interesting information was in it. Dr. L. G. Hardman granted the archeologists permission for the dig only on the condition that they turned over any gold discovered to Hardman. Additionally, they could not complete the dig in 1915 and asked to return. Hardman refused to grant access to the land again.
Additionally, at least three feet had been removed from the mound that did contain skeletal remains. These were gone before the arrival of the researchers. No one could tell the researchers where the remains went.
Seventy-five skeletal remains were identified in the dig. The first set of remains was found approximately three feet down. Some, like the top photo, were found with different objects. This one is believed to have a pendant at its neck. The bottom photo shows a copper armband around the top part of the arm.
Below are images of different items found in the mound. I am particularly intrigued by the “effigies” and the heads.
There are more images in the report. I highly suggest taking a look if you want to see more.
The Archdale House was featured in the 1895 book, Examples of colonial architecture in South Carolina and Georgia: Charleston, S. C., and Savannah, Ga. by Edward Crane and E. E. Soderholtz. Lambs, South Carolina, is now considered a part of Dorchester, and the ruins of the home can still be seen. It is believed the home was built in the early 1700s. It stood until the 1886 Charleston earthquake. The land and home stayed in the Richard Baker family for decades. A full description of the house’s history and the family is available here.
This school is identified as the Vernon Johnson School on the Georgia Genealogy Trails, but I question if it is the school in the black-and-white photo below. The heights of the buildings are quite different. If it is the same building, when was the roofline dropped and how?
I’ve also seen the black-and-white image identified as the Clear Creek School, but I believe that was mislabeled.
What are your thoughts?
