Georgia Traveler; 304; Historic Tour of Georgia

You Coming up on Georgia Traveler, it's the historic tour of Georgia. From traditional family style dining in the mountains to a working 1850s rule village in West Georgia, we journeyed to a few places that offered a glimpse of how the peach day used to be. That's next on Georgia Traveler. Hello and welcome to Georgia Traveler, I'm Valerie Edwards. This week we embark

on an historic tour of Georgia and we begin here at the Downhome Day Festival in Liarly, Georgia. Also, David does time at the Crime and Punishment Museum in Ashburn. Phil gets a taste of some Downhome cooking at the Smith House in DeLonaga and later we explore the antebellum charm of Madison. But right now a step back in time to rule Georgia as it looked in the 1850s. John West had a vision preserving for the future a part of America's past and today that vision lives on here in Westville. The origins of Westville go way back to 1929 with the Fairvain 1550 that was created by Colonel John Word West. As a child John West had visited his grandparents in North Carolina and listened to all the

stories of what life was like when they were young and he was so worried about losing the skills and the trades and those stories that he himself created the Fairvain 1550 to preserve those crafts. Located just about 40 miles south of Columbus Westville is as John West intended a living classroom. We deal with the politics courts merchants trade and and other handicrafts in that part of story. Then another part of story talked about what life was like living in a town like Westville. Typical of the towns more than three dozen historic buildings is the Loverd Brian home. Once a cotton plantation owner and a state senator Brian also owned 59 slaves. His plantation has been recreated at Westville. It features replicas of a cotton gin, a cotton bailing press as well as an

historic reproduction of a slave cabin. It is a reproduction of a cook's house and for us that we decided that was the initial structure we wanted to start with because that's where the cook would live and the cook was probably one of the most important slaves for the family. It was designed and built by Auburn University through a joint venture between Auburn University and us. Today the Stateley Bryan House stands as a reminder to the importance of cotton in shaping George's fortunes and its history. What I'm doing is carting cotton and the reason that I'm carting the cotton is to get the fibers straight. You cart it in order to get the fiber straight so that you can then spin it on the spinning wheel and then later on of course it'll be taken to the loom. It's really quite tedious to get out of these fibers. Visitors to Westville can watch as reenactors fly their trade just as they did nearly a century and a

half ago. You have to start with your fire, you have to control your fire and if your fire gets to be too hot then everything will melt as you go to dip it in. So you learn to control your fire first thing. Or do like I did and roll up your sleeves and try it for yourself. This isn't walking cane here. What I'm doing is shaping it up. Okay this is what we call a drone knife and this is what I'm setting on is what we call a shaven horse. What the shaven horse is is the device that you know hold the wood in place. I learned by my grandfather. This is something we always have been. You gotta let me try some. You ready? Yes I'm ready. We'll see. You want to try this fire. I don't want to mess up something you can worry about. That's a good idea. Okay. Let's get a raw piece of it and this again is called what? This is what we call the shaven horse. The shaven horse, okay. Oh let's sit down. Okay. This is the drone knife. Be really careful with it. Don't put it all the

way back to you. Okay. And this does what? This is the device. Just hold it down. Make sure you hold this tight. Oh okay. Hold it tight. Hold it tight. There you go. Now you ready. And just put it. Just put it. Just put it. Just a little bit. There you go. Wow. Cedar. Cedar. It's beautiful. While James works hard to fix my meager attempt at wood shaving we head on over to the blacksmith shop. It was important for us to come to Westville to see the past. And it's hard to go toward the future if you don't remember the past. And I'm afraid that we're going to be losing a lot of it. And we are losing a lot of our past histories. And this is a great place to come to understand where we came from. And so we're nowhere to go to. Westville is open year round and offers

guided tours as well as an assortment of holiday festivals. Or you can set out on your own and meander the unpaved streets of Westville and experience a step back in history to Georgia's early days. Next we head southeast to Ashburn where David learns about the history of crime and punishment and gets a last meal the hard way. You know what they say about Ashburn Georgia 100 gazillion fire ants can't be wrong. That's right folks. Ashburn Georgia is the fire ant capital of the world. Whether it's a soil, the warm climate or the sweet down home cooking these fire ants know what they're talking about. But there is one spot in town where they know to stay out of the kitchen. The last meal cafe located in the town's old jail cell now known as the Crime and Punishment Museum.

Ashburn's the only town I know of that has a crime and punishment museum in an old jail. When you first come in you're going to see a media room and when you have a 20 minute video that tells you the state of Georgia's crime and punishment history from least prisoners, gang gangs and then later on how things work today and we'll also talk about different forms of punishment from lethal injection to the hangings years ago to the electric chair. It is exact to within one eighth of an inch of the exact size of our electric chair. We have shanks handmade knives made by the Turner County inmates here. We also have an old fingerprint machine from the early 1900s. We have a handmade tattoo gun that was made by inmates so I guess they had a lot of time on their hands pretty ingenious. We have several ball and chains that you can see one is extremely heavy 42 pounds. So they weren't going to get away when they were wearing one of those. We have artifacts room thanks

from all over South Georgia. We have a KKK uniform and we display that because people a lot of times about then took the lawn to their own hands and did not have the system we have now which may be imperfect but at least we have a justice system. And that's just the beginning. The museum tour then heads back to the resident chambers where these inmates lived, slept and in some cases died. We have a death sale is what we call it and back in 1906 the very first year of the jail was opened. We had our first inmate that was hung. His name was Will Ford. He killed his employer for $150. He had been stabbed in the death and so he came here and of course back then when someone was hung it was like a carnival or a festival atmosphere. So he came to the window, confessed his sins and said don't waste your life like I did on women and gambling and then they hung in there. Then in 1914 we had our second gentleman that was hung. His name was Miles Creve. He was hung September 11, 1914 for killing his mother-in-law. Later on the death

sale was used as solitary confinement or if they had someone it was going to be transported. They would put them there until they were transported. Here in this solitary confinement sale you can find Mr. Creve's blood still on the collar of the shirt he wore the day he was hung. They would then take the rope, cut it in pieces and the rope that they used for Mr. Creve's. They cut it in pieces, they took it downstairs and they sold it to people. And then those people would in turn wear it on their lapel to let other people know they didn't into a hanging room. Well time has changed the way folks in Ashburn deal with sin and sang and executions. But I had an experience in the museum's old courtroom that taught me a lesson of what not to do while in Ashburn. Oh that ticked them off. Do not mess with fire ants. You don't do that here. They have a fire ant festival. It's very important to them. So the jury is here. They come down with the verdict to find out what my sentence is and Judge Gale, what is the verdict?

Did the name Ashburn didn't give it away? No. Duh, you must have from up there I would. Mm hmm. Well, guilty. Lock him up Andy. Go great when they come. We'll do like a mock jury trial and let them see how that works. And then once you've been sentenced we can take you to the last meal cafe. Oh wait, don't I get a last meal? You eat good southern food so good if you want it to be your last meal and we eat it on 10 plates, 10 cups just like the inmates use to when they were here years ago. You know the one great thing about getting sentenced here is that you get to eat at the last meal cafe and looks like my last meal is pork line. Thanks a lot. Mm hmm. That's worth it. So there I was. Trapped in the old Ashburn clique. No chance of escape no matter how hard I tried. Very small, very claustrophobic close quarters and when you go upstairs you'll see that

it was not posh living. They're very close to each other. There was no area for people to go out and have recreation. They would let them out just a little bit every now and then. There were no uniforms. There's no visiting area much different than the jails you would see today. And that replica electric chair. The kids have fun playing with that or is it kind of eerie to some people? Well some people are scared of it and some people love it and they'll hop up on there and they always want their pictures taken on the electric chair and some people will stripe themselves in which I would not do. Well now that I've seen the Crime and Punishment Museum and had a great meal at the last meal cafe I'm ready to go out and see the rest of the town of Ashburn. So let me out of this. That would be nice. Hello? Where are you going? Hello? Our next stop is Georgia's Golden Town of Dallanica where Phil takes a step back in time to have

a traditional family style feast. Dallanica, Georgia, side of the first gold rush in the United States history in 1829. The discovery of gold brought thousands of miners to the area, all searching for that elusive precious metal. The town later became home to a US branch meant which issued almost six million dollars in gold coins by 1861. Dallanica also boasts a historic home turned in where Phil finds out that good food and rich history can go hand in hand as he visits the Smith House just off the square. I enjoy visiting the North Georgia mountains and especially in Dallanica. Well just off the square there's a place that you have to visit if you come up here. It's the Smith House Inn and I consider it a gold nugget. This building was built in 1898 as a personal residence for a man named Frank Hall. He died in 1901 of south forward the rate of 56. Local legend headed that gold was discovered on the lot where Hall built his home

but he was unable to gain permission to mine it because of the house's proximity to the center of Dallanica. Upon his death he left behind a hidden mineshaft. Smith House sit here vacant after his death until 1918 or so. He was sold a couple of times before a man named Ben Smith bought it in 1922 and they hemmed his wife turned into a quarry house. You get your meals in your room for a Dallan quarter for meals in a room and they started off with very small and it grew and grew and grew so my father and my mother took the restaurant 1946. So we've been serving the same type of foods since 1922. The basic menu you have to make the same thing. Fried chicken can be a main thing on the menu, baked ham and then we have our roast beef and most y'all the vegetables that we shoot. Fried chicken has been a staple of southern cuisine for years and perhaps not so coincidentally also one of Phil's favorite foods. You know I'm down here in the

kitchen at the Smith House and what I wanted to learn is what is Smith House style fried chicken? About 15. So I'm going to reach in with my big hand. Okay, I'll look a leg and a couple legs showed up. So Mike is this something that every day this is how you know you would start all? Okay, every day. All right, get on there. All right, my favorite is the wings. Am I doing okay, Mike? Okay, that's perfect. Okay. Okay, that's just buttermilk. Plank. Are we working in here real good? Oh, yeah. Gotta get that buttermilk all over. Man, I'm taking all of it. I'm just playing with a buttermilk. I'm you shaking, dropping, shaking. I can shake with the best, government and dropping. All right, Mike, I'm feeling good about this. All right, so I just want to be able to get it. Shake it a little bit. Keep it low and just dump it over. All right, all right,

so come on, Mike. Come on, give me. Give me the feedback, man. What do you think? Perfect. Perfect. He said perfect. Man, did you hear that? Perfect. You did a good job, Mike. Yeah, you did a pretty good job. And we thought we'd make you like, I'm very certified. No. So according to the staff, Phil is a first-class chicken cooker. But in the restaurant business, there's really only one jury that matters, the customers. So good. It's as good as mama, so that's saying a lot. But I haven't had a meal like this so I couldn't tell you how long. I'd like the fresh vegetables, the fried chicken, and the bread. It's a great, healthy cooker. Well, the verdict is in, and it's tasty. Sometimes hundreds of people eat here a day. But until recently, none of them had any idea what was hidden beneath the floorboards of this venerable restaurant. 2006, we're doing a renovation to our

interests of the restaurant. And while we're taking the floor up, we're having trouble with it. We took it up and actually found a hole in the floor. They had actually discovered the shaft to the legendary gold mine that the Smithshouse original owner had dug and was unable to excavate. We took some of the ore out. We got, once we got cleaned off, we got down toward the bottom exit found out where the gold vein gold ore was in it. It had a good shell on the gold. And the quartz came out. We just landed it, landed it, landed it in the foam ring. It was still sitting on the airplane and my dad, on the other end, he said, we found the gold mine, we found the gold mine. All my life being here at Smithshouse, I was heard of the the real rich gold vein that was sitting on top of it under the Smithshouse. And I heard all my life and all my years of growing up, I always tried to find that gold vein. Nobody actually knew. Nobody knew until now. Since the discovery, dozens of artifacts and pieces of quartz have been recovered from the shaft. Much of it is on display near the mine opening inside

the Smithshouse. It's a spectacle that draws visitors from all over. But the endearing quality that keeps visitors coming back to the Smithshouse is the down home family atmosphere. After all, it's family run and never discount the power of good old-fashioned home cooking. All right, so I had a chance to sit down with the family and now it's time to hang out family style and see we got all of this delicious food on the table. You know, I just want to encourage you. You get a chance to come up here to the Smithshouse in Delanica, bring your family, meet the Welsh family and do what I'm getting ready to do, which is that thing I do better than everybody else. It's time to eat. Come on, y'all. Grab your hand. We conclude this historic tour of Georgia in the heart of the antebellum trail, where David discovers food, fun and a couple of great getaways in Madison. Madison, Georgia is located just 60 miles from Atlanta, but it seems like a world away. With fewer than 4,000 residents,

the town boasts one of the state's largest historic districts. In 2001, we were voted the number one small town in America by Travel Holiday Magazine. It's for those looking to escape the hustle and bustle of the world today in general. And we're really looking to escape to a small town. That's kind of got some authenticity remaining, quaint shops, really good dining, and very eclectic overnight accommodations. And we've got everything that a visitor is looking for. A good place to begin a visit to this small town is at the Madison Morgan Cultural Center. Well, it started in 1976 and the Cultural Center is a regional performing and visual art center serving 11 counties. It is housed in an old school building that was actually built in 1895 and functioned as a school until 1957. And what happened was in 1957, the local school board built a new school in town, a new public school. So this building was vacant, but it didn't really have a caretaker for a while, and concerned citizens who loved the building and who also some

of whom went to school here decided to form the Morgan County Foundation and save the building and turn it into the center that it has become the performing and visual art center that it is today. Every year, the first full weekend in May, the Madison Morgan Cultural Center sponsors Madison and May. This is a tour of homes that lets people from all over the country come to Georgia and learn about its rich history. One of the stops on the Madison tour of homes is a beautiful antebellum home known as Hilltop. This one was built in the early 1830s. It has been owned by several families during those years. My husband's family purchased it in 1922. My husband and his sister grew up in the house. In fact, Roy was born in the upstairs bedroom. And after his mother passed away, he and I spent about a year with an architect working on floor plans and so forth. We moved in and have been in 42 years.

Christine's husband, the late Roy Lambert, served in the Georgia State Senate and House of Representatives, so opening her home to visitors and being a gracious hostess continues a tradition of public service. I think that Madison, along with a lot of other smaller towns, are blessed with a lot of architecture that people have seen fit to hang on to. A lot of them have a lot of history connected with them and they are part of our treasure in our state. Another special home on the tour is the Arden Lea Farm. This place has been in our family since 1870. I had a great grandfather who came south with Mr. Sherman's army. He had opportunity to camp here on the site. Said he would love to come back here at my name of his native Scotland. He would love to come back here at another time and purchase it. He came back in 1869, purchased the property in 1400 acres. There's been homes on this site since 1830, 1840. The

rock house in the background is pre-civil war and it's always one of my favorite pieces structures on the property in that cell of rock house. Used as a smokehouse. Right now we do poultry industry. We do beef cattle. We have timber and then of course I love is the gardens and vegetables and flowers. We have six Andrew Ainslie's that have lived here on this site. My grandson, which we call Drew, is a six generation of Andrew Ainslie's. There's four generations of Andrew Ainslie still here in Madison all living within about four or five miles of each other. This is just our home. We do live here. We pick neck here. We barbecue here. We entertain here. So this is just a home like others. But it's fun to just sit back and see the expressions and have other people come out and enjoy. The people of Madison actually owe a great debt of gratitude to the man who lived in the home behind me. Joshua Hill. Joshua Hill was a pro union senator and he was a resident of Madison and he had ties with General Sherman's brother

at West Point and during the March to the sea in 1864 when General Sherman was staging the march out of Atlanta. General Sherman and pro union senator Joshua Hill had met previously and set up a gentleman's agreement not to burn the town. So when General Slokum came through, he actually did stand by his word and he did spare the town so that are located within the historic district. However, he wasn't as nice as he could have been. He burned the plantations and any of the businesses that aided the Confederate army on the outskirts of town. But the historic homes that you do see in the historic district are authentic to that time period in our antebellum. And while historic homes are a big draw, Madison has a great deal to offer including distinctive accommodations. One of the bed and breakfasts in town is the Brady Inn. Well, we've only owned the Inn for about three years but the Inn itself has been here since 1885. Not as an inn, it was a private home first. In 1919, this home was bought by Patrick Henry Brady and Patrick moved in as an older man with his daughter who lived in the home together until both of their

deaths. The home is named for both Patrick and Prasera. And when you go through the house, you'll see that it's set up pretty much as it would have been when they were living here. My husband does all the cooking, rightly so, and does a wonderful job. So if you come for one night or you come for several, you're going to get freshly ground coffee and assortment of gourmet teas, a fruit course varies from day to day as well as a full hot entre. And again, you won't get the same meal twice. I think people when they come to Madison are often coming because of the history and because of the beautiful homes and the historic district. And so an Inn like the Brady Inn just offers another amenity, another opportunity to not only come to a beautiful environment, but to stay in one as well. Madison is very blessed in the fact that we have several distinctive bed and breakfasts. Actually, you can stay anywhere from a farmhouse, to a Victorian cottage, to a new luxury boutique Inn. Located in the heart of downtown is the luxury boutique James Madison

Inn. With 17 individually themed guest rooms, each name for an historic Madison home, the hotel has been thoughtfully designed with special amenities. There is an emphasis here on using local artisans to create furniture, artwork, and overall ambience. Just across the way from the James Madison Inn, you can find some truly fine dining at town 220. Chef and owner, Francisco de Latore, prepared an unforgettable meal for the Georgia traveler team. If you're in the mood for more traditional southern fare, yold colonial on the square, serves up a choice of meats and veggies. Splendid places to stay, great food to eat, interesting things to see. There is always a great reason to visit Madison, whether it's a tour of homes or a chamber music festival. I don't think you can find a prettier place anywhere around. Well, that does it for this historic tour of Georgia. We hope you join us again next time. Until then, I'm Valerie Edwards, wishing you pleasant journey.

I'm going to have to pass this person. Going too slow for us Georgia travelers, right team? Thank you. Okay. What's street are we on now? Not only all right. Street are we on? And if I know it's street world? I don't know if it's that you have to visit. It's the Smith House Inn and I was doing so well and enjoy visiting in Deloitte. One more time. There's a place you should visit when you come up here and come one time. Georgia Traveler is produced in partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development.