The Kennesaw House

In the book Marietta – Then and Now by Joe Kirby and Damien Guarnieri tells of the Kennesaw House. It tells that a parapsychologist, hired by the History Channel, said there were one thousand ghosts in the building. I don’t doubt it. It has a lot of history.

In the Civil War it was a hotbed for intrigue and well, war kind of stuff. Andrews Raiders spent the night there before stealing The General locomotive from the South in Big Shanty (Kennesaw) the next day.

The owner of The Kennesaw House was the Fletcher family. There is an excellent book named “Journal of a Landlady” by Louisa Warren Fletcher and edited by Henry Higgins and Connie Cox with Jean Cole Anderson. It is very good, but and I enjoyed just as much was the parts outside her journal where the editors tell many points of interest in Marietta and what is so historical about each point. Anybody interested in the History of Marietta would feel awarded if they read the book.

It was up until Sherman’s visit four stories high. Sherman’s men started the act of destroying it, I suppose layer by layer, and was called off when Sherman learned the Fletchers were born and bred in the northeast or Mr. Fletcher was a Mason, I forgot which – which, an old age art of favoritism was utilized.

Now, the Kennesaw House houses the Marietta History Museum on the 2nd floor and a investment firm on the first. I forgot what is on the 4th level but it is something interesting – but evidently not a retention holder, for me anyway.

When we were kids, preteens, I think it was some type of hotel or rooming house. We used to slip by the people on the first floor, quietly go up the squeaky stairs, which was a challenge not to make any noise and play on the two levels. We would play “Hide & Seek” up there and hide in the various rooms that were not occupied. I think some were and some not, but mostly not. Each room was decorated in a basic manner. A bed, dresser and chair. I remember on each dresser was a big porcelain or white glass bowl and in it sat a big matching pitcher. Each room was timeless, it could have been in 1860 or 1956.

I don’t think the rooms had bathrooms. If so, we would have used them. The restrooms must have been at the end of the each hall, just like old hotels, which it was.

Later, when teenage fashion was everything. Up until I was a teenager the fashion for boys was Levis with the cuff rolled up just once. By the time I was well into my teenage years the fashion was still Levis, but no cuffs, and the pants were what we called pegged. The inseam was cut and reseamed, causing a tight legging look.

Some boys had their mothers peg their pants, some did their own, and others carried them to a tailor. I went to Hazel the Tailor. Hazel was a little bald headed frail black man who had his shop on the ground level of the Kennesaw House,. Outside his window you could see the railroad tracks and the Freight Depot, which is now a parking lot. Time stands still for no one.