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Beall-Pearson House
For Sale by Historic Westville
West Main Street
Lumpkin, Georgia
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Two houses claim
to be the oldest in Lumpkin. In fact, they both are older than the city
itself. Lumpkin was incorporated in December, 1830, while the Irwin-Partain
House and the Beall-Pearson House were built in August, 1830. They still
are the only buildings left in the city from before Indian Removal in
1836.
In the case of the
Beall-Pearson House, the small kitchen and dining room behind and to the
side of the house is probably the original part. Beall family lore holds
that Erasmus Beall lived in that part of the house until the rest of the
house could be built. Lumpkin’s population and architecture exploded
after the battles of the spring and summer of 1836 finished any claims
the Indians had to the lands of southwest Georgia.
The style
of the Beall-Pearson House lends strong evidence that the carpenter/builder
was the same person who built several other pre-1840 buildings in Lumpkin.
These include the Bedingfield Inn and the Gachet House. Indeed, Colonel
Beall was married to Charlotte Gachet. Also, his sister (Exa Beall) married
Dr. Bryan Bedingfield, owner of the Bedingfield Inn. (The Bedingfield
Inn, built c. 1836, served for several decades as a stagecoach hotel.
The Inn is now a top-quality house museum open to the public. See www.bedingfieldinn.org.)
The builder thus may have been Rev. William Lewis Crawford, who apparently
built houses in the Lumpkin area in the late 1830s. West Hill Plantation
and the Boynton House are two other local houses attributed to him.
These are the generations
of the Beall-Pearson House:
Col. Beall (pronounced
“Bell”) and his wife, Charlotte, had five children. The youngest,
Samuel, was born August 29, 1839. Samuel and his wife, Martha Price (from
Eufaula, Alabama), had seven children. Their third child, Lutie Beall,
married Preston Pearson of Lumpkin.
Preston and Lutie
Beall Pearson had six children, two of whom died in infancy. The others
were Preston, Jr.; Brooks; Sam; and Pattie Price. Preston, Jr. and Pattie
lived in the house until their deaths about twenty years ago.
Lumpkin’s residents
even today remember Pattie and Preston fondly. Miss Pattie was an out-going
individual who often entertained strangers and friends alike with her
piano- and “cup”-playing skills. The Beall-Pearson House in
those years over-flowed with the happy voices of Lumpkin’s children,
whom Miss Pattie “adopted” for parties. Many adults now recall
wonderful childhood times at the Beall-Pearson House. A picture of the
infant Pattie Pearson can be found on page 407 of The Stewart County History,
Vol. I.
Brooks (a founder
of the Frito-Lay Co.) and Pattie gave the house to Westville for safe-keeping.
It is this trust which brings Westville Village to offer the house for
sale with a preservation covenant. This covenant provides that no one
who owns the house may tear it down or move it. Further, there should
be no major changes to the exterior of the house without first consulting
with Westville’s staff. (Westville is a major living history museum
and historic preservation organization which operates for the public near
Lumpkin. See www.westville.org for more information.)
This covenant fulfills
Westville’s ethical obligation to perpetuate the building. The stability
of a covenant provides the community with a “sense of place,”
a term coined by the great Southern writer and photographer, Eudora Welty.
The covenant is not meant to be a hindrance to the owner. Indeed, if you
intend to acquire the house to enjoy its significant place in the community’s
history, then you will find that the covenant will be quite helpful to
you. To discuss this covenant, contact Matthew Moye at Westville Village
(229/838-6310, or matthew@westville.org).
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