Went With The Wind

 

The Graham-Simms House. Photo by me, November 2025.

My true reason for stopping in Covington last weekend was not to see the original Boar's Nest on Flat Rock Road, which still exists today as a church, but was to attend an estate sale and do book research. 

The house hosting the sale was located in one of the historic districts and was built in 1839. It was located on Floyd Street and is known as the Graham-Simms House. The house was built by Dr. William P. Graham. During his ownership, the house was the site of the first meeting of the board of trustees of Emory College (Emory University now) located in nearby Oxford.

James P. Simms

It was also the boyhood home of Confederate General and state legislator James P. Simms. His father, Judge Richard Lee Simms, purchased the house in 1850. The Simms family owned the house until 1919 and it has since changed hands numerous times over the last century. 

The house in August 1969. Photo from the state archives. 

 

In the 1920s the original large portico on the front of the house was replaced by a smaller columned porch as seen today. The grandeur of the house continued to fade and during the 1960s and 70s the house like many large old homes of the time was divided into apartments (the Ginn Apartments) before being converted back to a single family residence. According to newspaper archives the Ginn Family lived on the first floor and rented out the second.

The estate sale was impressive with many museum quality pieces from bronzes, paintings, porcelains and furniture. I enjoyed touring the house more than I did looking at the price tags which were inflated even with a discount on the third day of the sale. The house drew a crowd with cars lining both sides of Floyd Street and with so many people inside it was difficult to move around the halls, rooms and stairs. I saw lots of looking, but not much in the way of buying, though many of the most collectible items were already marked as sold.

A striking quadriptych hung near the top of the stairs. In older homes, I have noticed more triptych paintings and mirrors than quads. Photo by me, November 2025.

Photo by me, November 2025.

The house had fortunately kept many of its original features including several stained glass windows and a wonderful circular staircase rising from the main entry hall. Since the house had been divided into apartments many years before it was surprising to see the original lathe and plaster ceilings and walls in place.

Photo by me, November 2025.

I found the drapes Carol Burnett used as inspiration for her legendary Went with the Wind! sketch for her 1976 CBS TV show.

Standing in one of the downstairs rooms a teenage boy, without a phone in his hand, asked us if we were collectors. We said no, but that we have been involved enough in antiques that we knew enough about pricing and certain makers and styles. The boy said that it was the most beautiful house he had ever been into. I replied that it was pretty extraordinary and a bit over the top for my tastes. I was glad that someone had thought enough to bring the boy to the sale and the he had some appreciation for it instead of being bored out of his mind like many teenagers would have been.

In the rear of the house was a courtyard garden which was private from the other nearby houses. It reminded me of the gardens found at homes in compact Savannah or Charleston.

Not once was I bitten on the neck, put under a spell, involved in a crime spree, offered moonshine or compelled to yell "yeehaw" as I ran from the cops. Covington is really not Hazzard County, Mystic Falls or Sparta. It would be too easy to stereotype the town as some southern relic of time stood still, though it makes a good backdrop for those cliches to play out on the big screen. We are fortunate to have many of the older towns in the eastern part of Georgia that were settled before Atlanta architecturally preserved.

A busy Madison on a Saturday afternoon on W. Jefferson Street. Photo by me, November 2025.

After the sale, we headed further east to browse antiques in Madison. It was crowded and the shops were decked out for Christmas.

The abandoned Nolan Mansion between Madison and Bostwick. Photo by me, November 2025.

Heading north through Morgan County we passed the Nolan Mansion still standing and rotting away.

A cotton pickin' good time. Photo by me, November 2025.

On the way to Athens we went through the cotton fields of Oconee County. The cotton is always so pretty and looks like snow this time of year.

Every town has the old train station and few have passengers. Photo by me, November 2025.

Later we passed the old train station in Winder. The closest passenger stops near here are Atlanta, Gainesville and Toccoa.

That was my fall Saturday in the south.

The Middle Of Somewhere

 

January 2024

Crossroads, seem to come and go, yeah
The gypsy flies from coast to coast
Knowing many, loving none
Bearing sorrow having fun ...

A bird sang on a cold Sunday morning and a week began. My head was empty and that is the best way to roll out of bed, go downstairs and make coffee. Nothing except coffee needed to be made, not the bed or decisions. This was a planned week off from novel writing after a very productive week before.

It was a week that I wanted it to snow, but it did not. Instead I enjoyed the snow in Louisville at the end of my fingertips. It was a week dressed in wool in the wind, the sun and the rain that stretched from Woodstock to the northwest, Dawsonville to the north, Gainesville to the northeast and Warner Robins to the south.

Roads had me. It was a week of being in the middle of somewhere in the middle of something. The unfamiliar and the familiar were all the same like the double yellow line. I really am the character Chris M. Rhodes from my books as much as I am Chris M. Vise.

Bennett Street Atlanta. January 2024.

It was a week of buying furniture and art. Legs were stretched, a salesperson carried a lamp for me assuming I was too old and a stranger talked about cell phones in an old mill. It was the South as it was long ago faded like jeans hanging from a clothesline. I could love it again like watching Coal Miner's Daughter for the thousandth time. Somewhere Dew and Loretta were cutting up and ordering sliced bologna in a general store.

Again the morning's come
Again he's on the run
Sunbeams shining through his hair
Appearing not to have a care...

 

Pretty roads were traveled and the miles climbed only to be erased by a head on a pillow and a quilt pulled up high. Georgia Highway 11 between Gray in Jones County and Monticello in Jasper County was some of the prettiest two-lane country road I have seen in Georgia. We drifted through places called Round Oak, Wayside, Adgateville, Hillsboro and places that once had names, but only the road, the train tracks, the pines and broken down homes remain. It was a nice stretch of road from Flovilla by Indian Springs in Butts County down to Forsyth in Monroe County on Georgia Highway 42 too. The quiet was as persistent as the January cold.

It was a week that reminded me that the moments I ever loved Atlanta were few and gone. Sitting in traffic, hunting limited detours and holding back the frustration of being inconvenienced by careless drivers who needed to crash into each other on the interstate was enough.

 

Monticello, Georgia. January 2024

 

Long shadows on the town square in Monticello came from the sun and history. A teenage couple walked into a local coffee shop, cars circled the square to get to some place else in four directions and my head filled.

Crossroads, will you ever let him go? No, no, no
Will you hide the dead man's ghost?
Or will he lie, beneath the clay?
Or will his spirit float away?

 

I began jotting down thoughts about Confederate monuments and the darkest part of my family's history that I have never whispered or hinted. I had a thousand words before the spell broke and I needed a break. I was uncertain if I wanted to write that. I suppose it means I should. The easier something is to write, the less interesting it is.

Macon was a city that I only knew from I-75 going to Florida or I-16 going to Savannah. It was a place to get gas or use the rest area. Many times I had said that I was going to the cherry blossom festival there and many times I found a reason not to go. Macon could never seem to capture me. It was odd for me, I had walked on the streets of the other small Georgia cities such as Columbus and Augusta, but never Macon.

A river and a railroad passing time. January 2024.

I liked how lost in time and left behind it felt. The states of decay that the South has cannot be achieved elsewhere as if the red clay and the kudzu are special ingredients mixed with the heat and humidity. The impression that Macon had on me that once it was important and now it was a relic. In the smaller places of Georgia you see the connections and similarities the state has to its Southern neighbors that metro Atlanta does not have. I could have been just as easily in Gadsden or Fort Payne or Meridian instead of Macon, but those places did not give us Otis Redding or Little Richard or Ronnie Hammond (lead singer of the Atlanta Rhythm Section) or The Allman Brothers Band. There must be something special about the crossroads there and rolling down Highway 41.

Warner Robins, Georgia. January 2024.

I-985. January 2024.

The sun set on Saturday and a week ended. My feet went on my desk and outside as I write this it is nineteen degrees in the backyard. My lips are chapped and I am a little sore. It is time to be home again and to empty the head that is in the middle of thinking about something.

The Old State Capitol of Georgia

This Gothic Revival beauty stands after 200 years in a small east Georgia city. Photo by me, November 2012.

This was parts unknown for me in the Fall of 2012 as I traveled south on U.S. 441, crossed Lake Sinclair and arrived in Milledgeville. Other than Augusta I had never been or passed through the east central part of the state. It was a pretty drive south past the farm lands as I traveled from Interstate 20 with the occasional hill and town but mostly wide open spaces on the way to one of the former state capitals of Georgia. Georgia has been around long enough, a British colony in 1733 and a state since 1788, to have had more than one capital city - we Georgians can be a fickle bunch. I live in the current capital so on that perfectly sunny and warm October day I wanted to see the one that preceded Atlanta.

Before state lawmakers took residence under the gold dome in Atlanta this was their home. Photo by me, November 2012.

In 1804 the Georgia legislature voted to permanently relocate the state capitol from Louisville to Milledgeville. Construction began in 1805 for the new state capitol building in Milledgeville and it opened in 1807. It turned out to be not so permanent as Atlanta became the state capital in 1868.  

It was also here that the Georgia legislature made its most tragic mistake in its history in January 1861. The convention to secede from the Union over slavery was held in this building. It was not an immediate decision and several votes were held as legislators were divided among those in favor of secession and those who were Union loyalists. One vote was as close as 166 to 130 in favor of secession, but the final vote in favor was 208 to 89. 

Despite what might be taught, portrayed in the media or people may believe, the South and its citizens are and were not a monolithic block. After the legislature's vote and during the American Civil War there were protests, riots, desertions, militias loyal to the Union formed and a distaste against the war among some of the populace in Georgia. Demands to put the secession to a vote by the people of the state were ignored by those in power. As one newspaper in South Georgia put it, "this has been a rich man's war and a poor man's fight." Fools who still today fly the Confederate battle flag or erect monuments have never spoken for all of us in the South and likely understand very little of this region's complex history the same as those outside the region who believe in stereotypes.  

Photo by me, November 2012

Architecturally, the building was different from most state capitol buildings of that period in that it did not have a domed roof. The Gothic Revival building looks more like a fortress or castle than what comes to mind when one thinks of capitol buildings. I quite like it. Instead of a dome it has a pointy clock tower in the center. The lancet arch windows are elegant and the arch is repeated again on the face of the clock tower.

Photo by me, November 2012

Originally budgeted to be built for $60,000 by the time is was finished with additional wings added and renovations it cost $200,000 to complete or $5.2 million in 2012. Though the building was occupied in 1807 by the legislature, it would not be finished until 1835 and today what you see is considered to be the finished product. The building is made of brick that was manufactured in Milledgeville. The walls are reportedly between three to four feet thick.

The crenelations along the roof line add to the look of the building appearing as a fortress or castle. Architect Henry Hamilton is responsible for the crenelations and the two additional wings added to the building in 1828 and 1834.

The north portico that faces out onto Greene Street. Photo by me, November 2012.

The west entrance and stairs to the building. Photo by me, November 2012.

The south portico. Photo by me, November 2012.

The east face of the building. Photo by me, November 2012.

The granite stairs and the porticoes were added to the building in 1835. These additions to the building were designed by Charles Cluskey. Based on illustrations I have seen of the building prior to the steps and porticoes being added it would appear that one would have entered the building one level below from the floor you enter today.

Satellite imagery from Google Maps.

In this satellite view you can see how the capitol building was built in the middle of the square and was originally surrounded by green space on all four sides. This was a fairly conventional landscape design during the time for capitol grounds. Milledgeville like Savannah was planned out with squares and with a gridded street layout.

Photo by me, November 2012.

This is one of the sidewalks leading out from the capitol building in a linear line. This one heads in the direction of South Wayne Street. The lamps posts provide a nice visual aide in guiding the eye off into the distance, I bet they look nice at night.

The old state capitol building looks marvelous today but it has been beset by many unfortunate occurrences. You could say the building might be cursed - it suffered a fire in 1833 to the roof,  an 1894 fire in the clock tower, and in 1941 it had a serious fire from faulty wiring that did extensive damage. Another $8,000 in damage was done when Sherman passed through on his March To The Sea campaign during the American Civil War.

In 1871 the building served as the Baldwin County Courthouse and in 1879 it became the property of the Middle Georgia Military and Agricultural College which was later changed to the Georgia Military College in 1900. The building today is still the central piece of their campus.

Photo by me, November 2012.

Photo by me, November 2012

These are other buildings that are a part of the Georgia Military College campus. The buildings occupy space on the former capitol grounds and mimic the architectural style of the old capitol building. You can visit the old capitol building which today houses classrooms, a museum and still contains the house chamber from when it was the State Capitol Building of Georgia. 

For a historical perspective here are a couple of photos of the college's football team.

1907. Image courtesy the state archives of Georgia.

And from 1940. Image courtesy the state archives of Georgia.

And of the cadets in uniform before the old capitol.

1887. Image courtesy the state archives of Georgia.

 

   

1915. Image courtesy the state archives of Georgia.

One final historical photo from 1941 looking through the gates which are still there today.

1941. Image courtesy the state archives of Georgia.