Jarrell Plantation
Trip Start
Nov 19, 2007
1
148
171
Trip End
Ongoing
Juliette, GA, Georgia, United States
Thursday, August 6, 2009
It's Thursday August 6th and we have decided to head on back down to Lake Oconee to keep swimming every day in warm water while staying at our favorite Lawrence Shoals Georgia Power Park. On the road to Lake Oconee we pass an original cotton plantation.... so we stopped in to get a feel for how it was a while back. This plantation began with just a few family members in the mid 1800's. Slavery allowed Mr. Jarrell and his family to grow the cotton plantation into 600 working acres. After the Civil War most of his slaves came back and worked for a wage but cotton was not the "hot" item as silks were introduced as well as cotton without slavery is no longer profitable
Jarrell Plantation
. The family began to diversify to keep profits up. Mr. Jarrell's wife died leaving him with 2 children. He remarried and had 5 more. Within a year of marrying his second wife his sister and brother-in-law died and he took on thier 4 children. As you get a peek in the houses shown by my photos think about 11 children and two adults living in these rooms!! Eventually by the 1920's the Jarrell sons and daughters had grown up, married and built other houses for themselves on the plantation...the biggest is the white house that later became a B&B for many years.
I love checking out the kitchens and seeing how small the stoves are and how little storage room there was. The inventiveness and hardworking ethics kept this plantation growing and supporting a huge cast of family.
As you look through the pictures, understand how all the work shops requiring power to operate, were clumped together around his huge steam boiler. Enormous belts were set up to go from the boiler to each shop.
Another interesting tid bit is to check out how an old truck front with its engine is now being used as an engine to power other plantation needs than transportation.
