THE GHOSTS OF CASULON PLANTATION

 

 

        Monroe and Walton County can be proud of the many beautiful homes which have been built in our area over the last two hundred years.  We can boast of two storied colonial structures with wrap-around porches and wide sweeping lawns which harken us back to those long lost years of plantation days with horse drawn carriages & coaches, frosty glasses of lemonade served on the veranda to family and friends and the inside beckoning with hints of soon to be parties in the grand ballrooms or other reception rooms.

Monroe has one vestige of that long ago era on McDaniel Street with the stately home known now as the Briscoe/Selman/Pollock/Williams home.

        Just a short drive away from Monroe on your way to Good Hope, you can drive by now what is a sad remembrance of another grand old home which was in Jones Woods, known as Casulon Plantation.

        There is I have been told, on a cold winter’s night, one can hear whispers which sound like forlorn cries swirling around the grounds where the once beautiful boxwood lined gardens welcomed you to the wide porch of this beautiful old home.  These cries are thought to be ghosts of Miss Sally Maude Jones and others of her relatives as they continue searching for the house which served as home to members of the family.

A brief history of Casulon Plantation in Walton County, Good Hope, Georgia states:

        “Casulon Plantation, Walton/Morgan County, Georgia, built in 1824 by James W. Harris, son of Revolutionary War hero, John Harris, who fought in the battle of Kettle Creek, Wilkes County, Georgia.

        This was a large cotton plantation of 10,000 acres and over a hundred slaves. The estate has a long history, including the extravagant wedding of Harris’s daughter to the Georgia Governor, James S. Boynton.  The house stayed in the family until the 1940’s when it was abandoned.  In March 2002, a suspicious fire was started at the back door, completely engulfing the home, leaving nothing dust, debris, charred wood and memories of a happier time.”

A brief history of Casulon Plantation in Walton County, Good Hope, Georgia states:

        “Casulon Plantation, Walton/Morgan County, Georgia, built in 1824 by James W. Harris, son of Revolutionary War hero, John Harris, who fought in the battle of Kettle Creek, Wilkes County, Georgia.

        This was a large cotton plantation of 10,000 acres and over a hundred slaves. The estate has a long history, including the extravagant wedding of Harris’s daughter to the Georgia Governor, James S. Boynton.  The house stayed in the family until the 1940’s when it was abandoned.  In March 2002, a suspicious fire was started at the back door, completely engulfing the home, leaving nothing dust, debris, charred wood and memories of a happier time.”

Thanks to a doctor in New Orleans and active preservationist and historian, Marc R. Matrana has written several books on homes, churches, mansions and landmarks in Mississippi along with the book, “Lost Plantations of the South,” in which he details a beautiful, if not sad saga of the once beautiful and majestic Casulon Plantation.

        In excerpts from the book, Dr. Matrana has written about Casulon Plantation: “The white-columned Greek Revival mansion of Casulon Plantation in Walton County, Georgia, survived many trials in its nearly 180 year history.  Imminent threats endangered the notable home numerous times throughout its long saga. But it was in March 2002, after a bitter struggle with a company determined to undermine the area’s heritage

this great landmark, the site of a Georgia governor’s historic wedding, was reduced to ashes in a highly “suspicious” fire.

        Casulon Plantation’s history can be traced back to 1824, when it became one of the first structures to be built in Jones Woods.  Joseph Moss commissioned James W. Harris to oversee  the construction of the mansion. Enslaved people provided the bulk of physical labor during the building of the mansion. Fifteen years after its completion, Moss moved out west, selling the plantation to Harris, the builder.

        The house was originally built with a plain front. A Greek Revival-style portico with six large columns was later added to the front giving the house its characteristic façade. Built on a brick foundation, the structure itself was a wooden frame heart of pine with a metal roof.

The interior of the house included a large entrance hall. In the moldings above the hall, the builders carved twelve stars representing the original colonies – all except Georgia, whose star could be found in the stone walk leading to the gazebo in the garden.  The house was surrounded by a number of support structures: a well house, root cellar, slave cabins, a slave cemetery, tenant houses, caretaker’s house, blacksmith shop, corn crib, carriage house and log house, all of which remarkably survived into the twenty-first century.

        Casulon became the seat of a great agricultural empire, headed by James W. Harris, who became a successful planter.

        By 1860 he owned over 130 slaves and eventually commanded over ten thousand acres. On January 21, 1864,

Harris died, leaving his wife, Sarah Strong Thompson, and their two adult daughters, Susie and Mary, to administer the plantation during the ravages of the Civil War. Susie later inherited the plantation and married Georgia governor James S. Boynton at Casulon in 1883.. Days after the election the magnificent wedding of James Boynton and Susie Harris took place at the plantation.

        The ceremony was performed by Rev. Clement A. Evans and the Rev. G. A. Nunnally. After the ceremony the couple boarded a train for Atlanta where their honeymoon was spent at the famed Kimble House Hotel.

        In his bid for re-election, Boynton lost to Monroe’s Henry D. McDaniel.

With the passing of years the plantation passed into the hands of Sallie Maud Jones, the daughter of Mary Harris and Dr. Daniel Chandler Jones.  Sallie was a wealthy woman in her own right who never married but remained at Casulon until she grew elderly and ill. During her years on the plantation she employed a chauffeur who drove her around in a large black Cadillac. She also employed a black woman who was called Aunt Sis Thompson, who lived in one of the cabins close to the house.  Sallie Maud  became well known throughout the area for her generosity and philanthropy. She funded the college education of many local students whose parents were her friends and neighbors.

        During her tenure as proprietor of the plantation, Sallie Maud saw the property dwindle both in size and economic gain.

The property shrank from ten thousand acres to six thousand as the cotton and sales wavered. Upon her death in 1948, her nephews Harris and Bannon Jones inherited the estate.  In the 1950’s the Jones brothers invited A.L. and Lauriee Williams to move in as caretakers for the estate until 1968 when the brothers sold the plantation to Armstrong Cork Company, who almost immediately gaining ownership scheduled the mansion to be demolished.

        When word spread of the impending doom of the mansion and estate, the neighboring Morgan County Historical Society took action and got busy resulting in successfully negotiating for the donation of the property and fifteen surrounding acres. Standing long in abandonment and rural isolation, the house attracted a large number of visitors who stole items from the house and caused damage to the house and grounds.

In the 1970 the historical society began renting the house out to a group of hippies who used the house for tours, charging  fifty cents for admission. However this idea was soon shut down when the occupants threw too many wild parties, causing further damage and destruction to the property.

        One couple who took “the tour” of the house and grounds, Will and Janice Burrell Sommer, fell in love with the house and after months of talks and negotiations, finally persuaded the society to sell it to them.  Upon claiming ownership the couple began immediately restoring the house and its previous grandeur. However the joy and expectations the Sommer’s had was soon to be extinguished. 

In the early 1990’s Davidson Mineral Properties sought to begin a mining operation very near the mansion.  The couple convinced the state environmental protection agency to deny a mining permit. This protection was overturned but because of the unique mansion was recognized as one of the most significant and historic in the state the Georgia legislature modified the State Surface Mining Act to preserve this most important piece of architecture.

        Davidson Mineral Properties was purchased by Hanson Aggregates of England, who began again actions to start a quarry operation close to the mansion, being all too aware of the blockade Casulon represented to their multi-million dollar efforts. During this time of turbulence, the Sommer’s were facing a divorce.  They placed their beloved plantation and grounds on the market, asking $1.85 million dollars for it. On March 25, 2002, a suspicious fire began at the rurally isolated mansion near the back door of the house, causing the beloved

building to go up in flames, completely destroying the house along with a number of the out buildings.

        Walton County Sheriff Al Yarbrough said, “We are looking at this as a very suspicious fire,” Who or what may have started the fire was never fully discovered.”

        The Walton Tribune carried a headline of the fire in their March 27, 2002 issue along with articles from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Athens Banner Herald, causing officials to continue their investigation as to what or who cause the fire of one of the most beloved and beautiful plantation homes in the area. Sadly the cause still remains unsolved which is good reason for those cries and whispers in the deep night of the sprits of the family members trying to seek shelter and comfort in a home they so loved.