This house was built in the Greek Revival style circa 1851 for John Heyward Glover, Jr, most likely with the labor of enslaved people. It was restored and given its present Victorian appearance after a fire in the 1870s. Another fire in the 1930s destroyed the second floor and it was redesigned, with an altered roofline, by architect Montgomery Anderson.
John Heyward Glover, Jr. (1816-1859), originally a South Carolina rice planter, became a prominent local entrepreneur in Marietta, serving as its first mayor in 1852. He was instrumental in several early businesses in town, including a tannery and bank, with interest in a telegraph company.
Whitlock Avenue Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Larger houses stand out in Marietta’s historic districts, but restored Victorian cottages like this example, also known as the Armstrong-Cox-Galat House, better represent the middle-class housing that was once abundant in the city.
Whitlock Avenue Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
James Thomas Anderson (1866-1949), who constructed this house in 1900, was the wealthiest man in Cobb County at the time and the property is a significant example of early 20th-century revivalist architecture within the Whitlock Avenue Historic District. His son, James Thomas Anderson, Jr., was instrumental in the establishment of Cobb Landmarks and this house served for many years as its headquarters.
Whitlock Avenue Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The William Root House is a typical I-House form with a shed room at the rear (Plantation Plain), enhanced by a vernacular Greek Revival portico. Built circa 1845, it is one of the oldest houses in Marietta and an inspiring preservation success story. It was facing demolition when it was saved by Cobb Landmarks and now serves as a cultural and historic focal point. It was originally located two blocks east on the northeast corner of Church and Lemon streets and has been relocated twice. In 1893, the house was repositioned on its original lot. In 1989, it was relocated two blocks to its present location and restored. It is now an award-winning house museum, operated by Cobb Landmarks.
William Root (1815-1891), a native of Philadelphia, moved to Marietta in 1839, five years after the city’s founding. He began working as an assistant in William H. Kitchens’s drug store in Augusta in 1836, then relocated to Hamburg, South Carolina, in 1837. After a brief return to Philadelphia in 1838, he came back to Augusta in 1839 and then moved to Marietta to open a new drug and grocery store for Kitchens. On 15 September 1840, he married Hannah Rhemer Simpson (1807-1886).
The business grew quickly and Root became an influential pioneer citizen of Marietta. He helped establish St. James Episcopal Church. In 1844 he purchased the business from Kitchens and built this home about a year later. The Roots had five children (one son died as a toddler), and, according to the 1860 census, four enslaved people in their service. Cobb Landmarks has identified two of the enslaved by name: Lall Burge, who was likely a butler, or house servant, and Elsay Blake, also a domestic laborer.
With Atlanta and environs in the crosshairs of the Union armies, the Root family relocated to Washington, Georgia, in June 1864. They returned to a ruined Marietta on 15 July 1865, but fared better than many others, who lost everything. They were able to reoccupy their house. According to family papers, William Root noted, “Our dwelling, though damaged, was in tolerable condition.”
In 1866 William Root opened a new store on the Marietta Square, and owned the entire block bounded by Church, Ardis, Cherokee, and Lemon streets, the block on which the Root House originally stood. Marietta quickly rebuilt after the war and by the 1870s, Root’s sons joined him in business. He sold it to John R. Winters in 1884 and retired.
I first published this photograph (above) of Monticello’s Jordan-Lanier House in 2015. It was a well-known landmark just off the square downtown, though I never learned much about its history. I was saddened to get a message from my friend Aubrey Newby yesterday, noting that it was lost to fire on 11 May. As you can see from Aubrey’s photograph (below), nothing survived but the chimneys and the columns which defined the house. I don’t know any details about the fire, but wanted to share this news.
I stayed next door to this neat little cottage on a recent trip. I haven’t been able to track down much history, but it was apparently built by a member of the Glover family, who were among the earliest settlers of Marietta. It appears to have originated as a simple central hallway form and has been expanded, as is common with houses of this type. The narrow door and transom and sidelights are likely original, but the porch, which gives the house a vernacular Greek Revival appearance, may have been a slightly later addition. I will update when I learn more.
Whitlock Avenue Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This utilitarian cottage has always been a favorite of mine. I never stopped to photograph because there was always an old car parked on the side and it wasn’t a convenient stop on the highway. I’ve passed it hundreds of times and always wanted to document it. I finally did a few weeks ago. It’s located between Flemington and McIntosh (the settlement in Liberty, not the county to the south).
Dennis and Brenda Perry – Wayne County Library, Jesup
On 9 September 2025 I had the opportunity to meet Joshua Sharpe and Dennis Perry in Jesup. Sherna Spearman Lott of the Wayne County Library served as the moderator for a discussion about Sharpe’s new book, The Man No One Believed: The Untold Story of the Georgia Church Murders. Dennis Perry was that man. His long incarceration came with high personal costs. His wife divorced him and he lost both his parents. One bright spot of that time was reconnecting with Brenda, who he’d known years earlier. She believed in his innocence and they married while he was still in prison. Brenda was there, too. You’d never know the ordeal they’d been through. They weren’t bitter or occupied with the past. They were humble and optimistic.
The Man No One Believed begins with the murder of Harold and Thelma Swain at Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Camden County in 1985, and bravely makes its way through predictable roadblocks of institutional racism, corrupt cops, and elected officials. The Georgia Innocence Project reported on one of those roadblocks “...Sheriff William Smith offered $40,000 of seized drug-related civil forfeiture money to a friend and former sheriff’s deputy to solve the murders. Within a week, the deputy had determined that Dennis Perry was the lead suspect, almost entirely due to information generated by a single informant who was seeking a $25,000 reward.” With those forces working against justice, it’s no wonder it was so long coming. To Dennis Perry and, especially, the Swains.
(l-r) Sherna Spearman Lott, Joshua Sharpe, Dennis Perry – Wayne County Library, Jesup
In the year 2000, an election year, Perry was convicted of the crime and received a double life sentence. In The Man No One Believed, Joshua Sharpe reveals flaws in the justice system, while tracking down leads that were purposely obfuscated in the initial investigation. He had doors slammed in his face and drew the ire of locals who knew more than they were saying, if they were saying anything at all. A native of Waycross, he knew the area and he knew when he was getting the silent treatment. He focused on a local White supremacist who was said to have bragged about committing the murders. The suspicious death of a key figure in the case drew concerns for Sharpe’s safety from his editors and sources.Jackie Johnson, the same district attorney who refused to prosecute the men who killed Ahmaud Arbery fought to keep Perry in prison and re-open the 35-year-old case. The work of the Georgia Innocence Project and volunteer attorneys from King & Spalding, reported by Sharpe, helped ensure Dennis Perry’s 2020 release.
Joshua Sharpe (l) and Dennis Perry – Wayne County Library, Jesup
Erik Sparre of Waynesville was arrested without incident and charged with the murders of Harold and Thelma Swain in 2024. Dennis and Brenda Perry have gotten on with their lives and hopefully, justice will be done for the loved ones of Harold and Thelma Swain.
Someone from Dodge County recently reached out to me about documenting this historic school, located east of Eastman on Georgia Highway 46, and I was able to get a photograph of the side of the building. They identified it as the old Hendrix High School and stated it closed in 1957 when the Dodge County High School was built. It was possibly a comprehensive school, with all grades. That’s all I know for now. Rural schools were the norm until school consolidation in the 1950s and 1960s and many survive throughout the state.
Lovely Grove Baptist Church is a historic congregation in Dodge County. I haven’t been able to locate a history, but the earliest burial I found in the cemetery was circa 1866.
