Andrew Nations House, Northeast corner of intersection of Redwing & Bernhard Roads, Peachtree City

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS GA,57-PEACI,1-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Andrew Nations House is significant as an excellent example of a vernacular farmhouse in rural Georgia. It is representative of the abandoned farmhouses that became a feature of the southern landscape after the boll weevil destroyed crops in the 191 Os and the Great Depression of the It is also significant as one of eight contributing farmhouses in the Redwine Road Rural District located in southwest Fayette County; the district is a sparsely developed, scattered rural kinship community whose settlement dates to the mid- l Description: The Andrew Nations House is a one-story, front-gable dwelling with a massed floor plan and a full-facade, hipped, front porch with replacement wood posts.

The structure is two rooms wide and two rooms deep, with a rear addition consisting of a small room and a porch on the southwest comer. The windows are one-over-one and two-over-two double hung sash. The house rests on a brick pier foundation, and the roof, covered with asphalt shingle and asphalt roll, has overhanging eaves and exposed rafters. There is one brick chimney located on the ridgeline of the roof. The exterior of the structure is sided with weatherboard. The interior of the house contains four fireplaces, one in each of the four rooms. The original hardwood flooring is intact but is in poor condition and deteriorated in some places. The house is in poor condition and is vacant.

History: The Andrew Nations House, on the northeast comer of Redwine Road and Bernhard Road, was constructed by Andrew Nations, in a scattered rural community, located in the southwest section of Fayette County. This community is hereafter referred to as the Redwine Road Community. When the house was built, the area consisted of several farm families: primarily the Price family, the Nations family, and the Redwine family. The scattered rural community is a type of agricultural community common throughout the Piedmont Region of Georgia where the land lottery system of settlement tended to spread out the rural population producing, in Fayette County, a pattern of small isolated farm sites scattered randomly over the land.

One of the early settlers of the Redwine Road Community was Alexander Ware. The Fayette county Tax Digest lists Ware as owning 800 acres ANDREW NATIONS HOUSE HABS No. GA-2306 (Page 2) of land: land lots 2, 3, 22, and 23 along Quarters Road. By the when he left Fayette County, he was the largest land owner in the county. James Price, born in was brought from South Carolina as a slave into the Redwine Road area of Fayette County. Price married in and had six children. Two of his children, Thomas and Robert, would become prosperous farmers within the Redwine Road community. Robert Price farmed his property on Quarters Road until the depression, after which, in he sold his farm to Harry Redwine of Fayetteville. Thomas Price bought land in along the south side of Bernhard Road.

He was a successful farmer and was able to increase his land holdings over the years. When the depression drove a neighboring farmer out of business, Price bought his land on Redwine Road. Thomas Price died in leaving a rich legacy and valuable land. The Redwine family was one of Fayette County's most prominent families. The Redwines and the Nations family were good friends who shared business ventures, went to the same church, and lived near each other on Redwine Road. Today, a chimney and trees mark the site of the Redwine farmhouse which was located on the west side of Redwine Road just south of the intersection with Quarters Road.

Charles Davenport Redwine, a prominent citizen of Fayette County, was born in When he was young, he and his brothers formed a partnership consisting of three private banks, two cotton gins, an automobile agency, a standard oil station, an undertaking establishment, a lumber plant, a fertilizer plant, a merchantile business, and a large farming operation consisting of over acres of land. Andrew Nations was the son of Tom Nations, a prosperous farmer whose first farmhouse was located just off Bernhard Road, on the east side of Georgia Highway 85. He had several hundred acres of land and operated a cotton gin, a store, and a sawmill. When Tom Nation's first wife died, she left five sons to raise.

In after Tom Nations' first wife died, he married Mildred Walker and they left the original homeplace and built a new house on the west side of Redwine Road. Here Tom Nations and his wife lived until Andrew Nations was born in and married Berdie Edmonson, who worked as a teacher in Tyrone before she married. Nations built his house in and farmed 75 acres, growing primarily cotton and com. His daughter, Marvin Duke, remembers that the house had a swept yard. She also remembers that they called the community "Red Aleck" because of the bright red clay roads. After the boll weevil devastated the crops, the family gave up farming and moved to Senoia in Snowie and Nonie Matthews, an African-American family, lived as tenants in the Andrew Nations house for many years.

Snowie was a handy man and did day labor and farmed, and Nonie was a teacher. She taught at the Hartford School on Padgett Road, (where the Price family had given land to create a church). ANDREW NATIONS HOUSE HABS No. GA-2306 (Page 3) Another of Tom's sons, Jeff Nations, built a home directly across the street from his father's house on the east side of Redwine Road. A chimney marks the site of that home. Jeff Nations farmed and worked with the Redwine family in a variety of capacities including being a cotton broker.

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS GA,57-PEACI,1-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Prepared by: Lilly Hardison, Preservation Planner Amy C. Kissane, Senior Preservation Planner The Jaeger Company 119 Washington Street Gainesville, GA August ANDREW NATIONS HOUSE HABS No. GA-2306 (Page 4) Redwine Road 0 Porch Porch Bernhard Road Jam.es R Lockhart August, Not To Scale ANDREW NATIO NS HOUSE HABS No. GA-2306 (page 5) .. 1 Andrew Nations House . =0= Bernhard Road .. . .. r-- , 0 ... - Redwine District Boundary