User:Rwilliamlee/sandbox/Historic Barnes Plantation

Historic Barnes Plantation, Woodbury, Meriwether County, Georgia Historic Barnes Plantation, Woodbury, Meriwether County, Georgia (Now known as "Harmony Hall")

The Barnes Plantation home is located at "Barnes Crossroads" in rural Meriwether County, Georgia. While considered to be Woodbury, the home is actually closer to the County Seat, Greenville (5 miles north), and the small town of Warm Springs (5 miles south). Barnes Crossroads is 6 miles west of the small town of Woodbury, GA.

The Barnes Plantation is significant in terms of architecture, landscape architecture, local history, and historic archaeology. The main house is an excellent and well-preserved example of the antebellum Greek Revival plantation house found in this part of Georgia. The house displays design features, building materials, and construction techniques characteristic of its style and date. Like many houses from this period, it was built of wood, stone, and brick secured from the site.

Construction of the main house of Barnes Plantation was begun in 1828 by Jordan Barnes, brother of Gideon Barnes (for whom the town of Barnesville, GA is named). The Barnes brothers were from Southampton County, Virginia, having migrated to Georgia in order to participate in the land lotteries being conducted. Like his brother had enjoyed a few years earlier, Jordan Barnes had a "fortunate draw" in the land lottery of December, 1827 and assembled a plantation of approximately 2,000 acres for the purpose of growing cotton. The series of land lotteries during the early nineteenth century in Georgia were pushing the indigenous Native Americans westward. Prior to the lottery of 1827 the line of demarcation was the Flint River. After that lottery, the territory between the Flint River (east) and the Chattahoochee River (west, point of separation between Georgia and what would become Alabama) were awarded by State Lottery and settled soon thereafter by white settlers and slaves. A cotton economy began to thrive.

The Barnes Plantation home is a two-story, wood-frame antebellum Greek Revival Plantation Home. Its original floor plan was a "two-room-over-two-room" style with central stairhall plan. Each story of the front facade is articulated by a Greek Revival doorway, with transom and sidelights, which is flanked by a pair of windows. The home is constructed of timber cut from the property and milled on-site in what would at the time would have been a "frontier" environment. Floors are of heart-pine and paneled doors are of oak with mortise-and-tenon joinery. Barnes' crossroads is known to have been largely self-sufficient in the early years, having a School, an Inn for travelers, Blacksmith's Shop, Livery Stables, a General Store, and a Stage Coach stop at one time.

Famous visitors to The Barnes Plantation have included Oscar Wilde, the British Playwright, in July 1882 following his lecture in Columbus, GA. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who adopted this part of central Georgia in 1924 when he discovered nearby Warm Springs, befriended A.J. Barnes (3rd generation in the home). FDR was a frequent visitor to The Barnes Plantation and enjoyed games of checkers with A.J. under the shade of a large oak tree across the road from the house. In November, 1932, when FDR was president-elect of the United States, A.J. Barnes gave that same oak tree to FDR "For and in consideration of the interest in the preservation of the forest and trees of the United States," the gift having been in response to the many times FDR had commented on the tree's size and beauty. An additional swath of ten feet surrounding the tree was included, and the gift was recorded in the county deed books.

Between completion of the construction circa 1830, and up until the 1983, a total of five generations of the Barnes family lived in the Barnes Plantation home. After a period of various successive owners over a period of less than a decade, the home fell into foreclosure and was left open to the elements. An Atlanta couple purchased the property in 1994 and saved it. Over a 20+ year period they painstakingly renovated and expanded the home (additions to the sides and rear), while simultaneously tending to and beautifying the 25 acres of grounds. This couple then relocated to another state, and the property was vacant for almost 3 years in search of a new owner. The then 186-year-old property sold in September, 2016 and the enthusiastic new owner has named the home "Harmony Hall", in a nod to the road name (Harmony Church Road), and his love of music.

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