Jewell Historic District

Jewell is a former textile mill village on both banks of the Ogeechee River, split between Hancock and Warren counties in Georgia. Houses, two churches and a small frame schoolhouse face an open green. The Methodist church dates to about 1841-45 and was moved from Rock Mills in 1894. The Baptist church, built about 1871, is described as the oldest brick church in its association. The settlement grew from mills founded by the Shivers family. Daniel A. Jewell, a Massachusetts native, bought the factory in 1857 and became sole owner in 1858. He built it into a textile center producing osnaburgs, kerseys, jeans and yarn. The town was renamed Jewell's Mills in 1872. A fire destroyed the mills in 1927, and a row of mill workers' houses was cleared in the 1960s. Surviving mill houses, Queen Anne residences and the green give the village an intact 19th-century character, and many residents descend from mill families.