Durham, Roger S.

Roger S. Durham was sent to Savannah when he was in the U.S. Army in 1969. During this time, he visited Fort McAllister and became intrigued with its history. Nine years later, while employed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, he returned to the fort as superintendent of the historic site. Durham has written extensively for magazines and newspapers, and he has published several books about Savannah and Fort McAllister's history.

The Franklin House, also known as the Old Athens Hotel and the Athens Hardware Company, is located at 464-480 East Broad Street. In 1843 Major William L. Mitchell, member of the University of Georgia Board of Trustees, bought the site at auction from the University and built the Franklin House, designed for commercial establishments on the ground floor with hotel accommodations on the upper floors. The building was constructed in three stages between 1845 and 1860. Initiation of mercantile activity preceded hotel operations, which began in June 1847. Additions to the rear were constructed before 1860, and the second-floor balconies (or porch) were probably removed during installation of the cast-iron storefront in 1886. As a prominent local hotel, the Franklin House served as a focal point for social and commercial activity as well as political and civic affairs. Governor Howell Cobb and Alexander H. Stephens, later Vice President of the Confederacy, were among its more noteworthy guests. Upon Major Mitchell's death in 1860, J. W. Nicholson purchased the building and continued its hotel operation until 1865. Subsequently, the Childs-Nickerson Company, later renamed the Athens Hardware Company, operated continuously in the Franklin House for 107 years until 1972, when the hardware firm relocated to North Thomas Street. With demolition impending in 1973, the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation launched a fundraising effort to acquire the building and secured a grant from the National Park Service to stabilize it. Athens businessman Hugh Fowler bought the property in 1977 and later sold it to Broad Street Associates of Tucker, Georgia. Their restoration of the building won an award from the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation in 1983 for outstanding restoration and adaptive use. The Franklin House was documented by the Historic American Building Survey (GA-1122), is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (December 11, 1974) and locally designated as a Historic Landmark (March 6, 1990). Carl Vinson Institute of Government http://www.cviog.uga.edu (Retrieved February 24, 2009)

From the description of Roger S. Durham, Graffiti of the Franklin House, Athens, Georgia, 1870-1977. (University of Georgia). WorldCat record id: 310467396

Roger S. Durham is the director of the U.S. Army Heritage Museum in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. -- "High Seas and Yankee Gunboats- about the author." University of South Carolina Press. http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/2005/3572.html (Retrieved February 25, 2009)

Charles Colcock Jones, Sr. (1804-1863), the personification of the Christian slaveholder, was born into the slaveholding oligarchy of Liberty County, GA. Educated in the richly textured piety of the Midway Church and the seminaries at Andover and Princeton, he writhed in the moral torments of the slave system. He tried to resolve this inner conflict by forming a Christian church among the slaves of his native county as a model for the entire South. Although sometimes professor of church history at Presbyterian Columbia Theological Seminary and secretary of the Board of Domestic Missions of the Presbyterian denomination (Old School), he was most famous as founder of and chief publicist for the Association for the Religious Instruction of the Negro in Liberty County, GA. "Jones, Charles Colcock, Sr. " The Encyclopedia of Religion in the South.

From the description of Roger S. Durham, Journeys, 1861-1862. (University of Georgia). WorldCat record id: 311054193