Photos: Saving a former slave cabin in north Georgia

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Photos: Saving a former slave cabin in north Georgia

Slaves once lived in this small cabin just a short drive from Lake Rabun in White County.

Slaves once lived in this small cabin just a short drive from Lake Rabun in White County. Two women -- one a descendent of slaves and the other a descendent of slave owners -- worked together to save the cabin. The restoration included this recreation of what the interior furnishings could have looked like. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

Built circa 1850, what's now known as the Sautee Nacoochee “African American Heritage Site” cabin housed slaves who worked for prominent White County farmer and businessman E. P. White. The one-room cabin has a glass window, which was considered to be a luxury. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

Andy Allen, left, and Caroline Crittenden joined together in an effort to save and preserve the old slave cabin, and the heritage and history that went with it. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

This is what the former slave cabin in the Sautee Nacoochee Valley looked like before it was restored. In the decades after slavery the cabin was added onto and used as a winter cabin for descendants of the Williams family. (Courtesy of Caroline Crittenden)

The original chimney was disassembled, the stones numbered and then reconstructed on the new site of the cabin. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

The one-room cabin continued to be lived in through the decades and had several rooms added on, which had since rotted away. It had most recently been used as a storage shed. After its restoration, the cabin was moved to a new location at the Sautee Nacoochee Center in Sautee Nacoochee near Helen. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

A cooling vat such as this one was filled with water and used to keep dairy products fresh. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

Another view of the cabin's interior includes this view out of the window. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

During the restoration, new shingles were hand spit to maintain authenticity. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

The one room cabin has a window, which is considered to be a luxury. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

This plaque is mounted at the entrance to the cabin. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

E.P. Williams, one of White County’s more successful businessmen and farmers. (Courtesy of Caroline Crittenden)

Andy Allen’s great-grandmother, Mary Ann Nicely (left) stands outside her family’s White County cabin. Allen’s grandparents, Lessie and Ed Nicely, stand next to her. The cabin burned down in later years. (Courtesy of Andy Allen)

This is an old White County sharecroppers’ agreement found by Crittenden. The date is marked three months after the official end of the Civil War. Many African Americans who were former slaves remained in the South after the war and became sharecroppers. The sharecropping system economically disenfranchised generations of African Americans and contributed to The Great Migration of blacks from the South to the industrial North between 1910 and 1970. (Courtesy of Caroline Crittenden)

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Slaves once lived in this small cabin just a short drive from Lake Rabun in White County. Two women -- one a descendent of slaves and the other a descendent of slave owners -- worked together to save the cabin. The restoration included this recreation of what the interior furnishings could have looked like. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

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