Most old houses keep their secrets. This one gave them up.

In 2020, this 1832 plantation house was found vacant, boarded up, and unsold down a dirt road in Houston County, Georgia. It was completely unmodernized, its original materials intact. But it wasn’t empty. Inside, and deep within the local court archives, lay an unbroken, tragic, and beautiful paper trail. A house this intact doesn't just preserve timber and glass; it anchors the lives of everyone who passed through it.

The wavy-glass windows distort the views today just as they did before the Civil War. Only a little imagination is needed to steal a glimpse of the people now vanished into time. It's an era relegated to silence, but one that lingers most loudly beneath the surface.

 

 

Door One
Plantation's Past
Cotton, artifacts, documents, and the records of daily life on the plantation, 1832 to 1867.
Cotton  ·  Artifacts  ·  Documents  ·  Enslaved Records
Enter →
Door Two
The Bryan Family
Ten children. One estate. Twenty years of records — and a family story that stretches from 1801 to 1966.
James & Catharine  ·  Ten Children  ·  Second Generation
Enter →
Door Three
The Enslaved
Over one hundred names across twenty years of records — two inventories, the estate returns, and the labor contracts of 1867.
1847 Inventory  ·  1861 Inventory  ·  Returns  ·  Freedmen
Enter →
The Bryan Family
← Choose another door
Original Family
Father · 1st generation
James A. Bryan
1801 – 1847
Built the house in 1832. Died at forty-five. His estate ran for nineteen more years. The inventory filed at his death is the founding document of this archive.
Read the record →
Mother · 1st generation
Catharine H. Bryan
1803 – 1861
Died the same year as her son Troup, and the year the Civil War began.
Read the record →
1st son
Robert
1826 – 1895
Administrator of the estate 1847–1866. Represented Laura in the final distribution. The longest presence in the documentary record.
Read the record →
2nd son
Troup
1828 – 1861
Died at 33, the same year as his mother.
Read the record →
3rd son
Ira Hugh Bryan
1830 – after 1875
Precise date of death unknown. The record last places him in March 1865.
Read the record →
4th son
Cornelius
1832 – 1874
Born the year the house was finished. Oversaw the plantation for nine years through the war. Jailed in Macon; exempted for $500 under the Twenty Negro Law.
Read the record →
1st daughter
Nancy
1834 – 1904
Graduated first in her class. Sherman's officers occupied her plantation in 1864. Her granddaughter was the technical advisor on Gone With the Wind.
Read the record →
5th son
Abner
1836 – 1889
Left for the Confederate Army in 1862 — $7.50 cash recorded in the ledger. Returned. Signatory to the 1867 Freedmen's labor contract.
Read the record →
2nd daughter
Catharine P.
1837 – 1919
Known as "Kitty." Confirmed in the 1866 distribution. Lived to 81 — she saw emancipation, Reconstruction, and the First World War.
Read the record →
6th son
James S.
1840 – 1907
Co-signatory with Abner to the 1867 Freedmen's Bureau labor contract. Initial retained to distinguish from his father James A.
Read the record →
3rd daughter
Honora
1844 – before 1890
Represented in the 1866 distribution by her husband Thomas Whitehurst. Precise date of death unknown.
Read the record →
4th daughter
Laura
1847 – 1906
Born the year her father died. Represented by Robert in the 1866 distribution. Subject of the 1867 Laura's Return.
Read the record →
Descendants
Son of Abner
John
1869 – 1914
Husband of Lynda Lee. Named the house Lynton in his will.
Read the record →
🚩Wife of John
Lynda Lee
1872 – 1966
Narrator of the Lynton Book. The name Lynton comes from the first syllable of Lynda and the last syllable of Houston. She lived 94 years.
Read the record →
Daughter of Abner
Mary
1873 – 1948
Born in the house on Lot 242. Pianist and teacher. Wrote a prayer in Abner's Bible in Talbotton, 1903, signed for her jewels.
Read the record →
Daughter of Abner
Sarah
1874 – 1943
Born in the house her grandfather built. Left it at fourteen. Traveled the world, then stood at the reunion and said there was nowhere prettier on earth.
Read the record →
🚩Daughter of Robert
Kathleen
1852 – 1937
The town of Kathleen, Georgia is named for her. Born before her grandfather's estate was settled; lived to see the New Deal.
Read the record →
Descendants
Additional descendants to be added
Court Officials, Appraisers & Commissioners
Wilson Smith — Appraiser, 1847Wm. Haddock — Appraiser, 1847M. Joiner — Appraiser, 1847Thomas Kinsey — J.P., 1847J.M. Davis — Commissioner, 1866A.M. Crowder — Commissioner & J.P., 1866W.D. Simmons — Commissioner, 1866Jas. B. McMurray — Commissioner, 1866L.R. Alexander — Commissioner, 1866
The Enslaved
← Choose another door
Path One
The Names in the Record
Over one hundred first names recorded from the 1847 inventory, the 1861 inventory, the estate returns, and the 1867 Freedmen contracts.
Enter →
Path Two
Life on the Plantation
To understand what daily life looked like on this ground, this section draws on the study of a neighboring plantation in 1928, and on one man's memory who was there.
Enter →
Path Three
Individuals in the Ledger
Some enslaved people are named in the annual estate returns as doing something. Limited to those for whom the returns recorded a name with a purpose.
Enter →

The Records Survived

"1858 Nov. 1,  Cash for Boy Henry as per Bill of Sale — $1,170"

Nancy Bryan

Abner Bryan

Laura Bryan

Lynda Lee Bryan

The Light of Other Days

"The Afternoon was one of remembrance. It was spent at Bryan Homestead. The family group of two generations lingered long at the spot where they first knew what life and love and home were. Many were the changes, but memory, with her tender touch, brought to mind the "light of other days" and they saw the glorified pictures of the past. By twos and threes, with gentle eyes and hushed voices, they went through the familiar haunts, here a tree there a nook, the brook where many and oft they had waded; the sacred cemetery where those dear loved ones are sleeping. All these pictures, that are painted on the hearts and can never be effaced."

1916- Lynda Lee Bryan   

Read The Full Story