Smith and Douglas Family Houses

Two modest frame houses face each other across MacJohnson Road in Cassville, Georgia. The Smith House, built about 1892, began as a two-room saddlebag with a central chimney and was later enlarged for a growing family. The Douglas House, from about 1901, is a variant of the pyramidal cottage with a steep hipped roof and a four-room plan without a hallway. Both stand on land first bought in 1875 by Charles Edwards, a former slave who worked as a teacher, preacher and farmer. His descendants, the Douglas and Smith families, farmed the land, raised livestock and kept it in the family for more than a century. In a region where sharecropping and tenant farming were common, the houses show African-American independence and property ownership. They are among the first rural African-American resources documented in Georgia. Although covered with artificial siding, they keep their form, windows, doors, floor plans and many interior details.