After nearly two weeks in Florida, I crossed into Grady County, Georgia on my 16th day on the road. I immediately made a note to myself to find out who the Grady family is that has so many things named after it in this state before I finished my time there.
I headed to Thomasville to check out the Pebble Hill Plantation. The original plantation dates from 1825, when Georgia incorporated the area following the departure of Spain. It operated as a plantation until the Civil War when this part of the state became a vacation site for northerners fleeing winter. By the end of the 19th century, the powerful Hanna Family of Cleveland purchased the estate and it developed reknown for hunting, something that both Eisenhower and Carter did during visits there. The current house has only one portion that belonged to the antebellum house because there was a fire in 1934. Despite the Depression, the house was rebuilt in months. It includes some Ohio touches, like the hand-painted wallpaper that incorporates the cardinal, Ohio’s state bird, into magnolias from Georgia. On the grounds outside I stopped to admire the Spanish moss and a reproduction of Noah’s Ark with elaborate murals inside. The grounds include a log cabin that operated as an award-winning school for African-American children until Brown v. Board of Education desegregated schools.
I headed back into the town to see the Hanna-McKinley House, where President McKinley was nominated for president because Hanna was gathering pledges from other Republicans. It was closed, as was almost everything because it was New Years Eve. The town was quaint and pretty. I got a sandwich and soda at the local soda fountain and walked Tamu for a bit. I saw my first peach in Georgia and then we headed east to ring the new year together in a quiet hotel.
