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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

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.

7 comments:

  1. Good memories, Eddie. You reminded me that when I was in junior high school, we use to go to a local apratment building and play on the elevators. They didn't like it one bit, and eventually they banned us from the building. We also used to go into my church, a very large one, and play hide and seek.

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  2. Judy,
    I think that even made it more fun - being someplace that the grownups didn't want us... it added to the thrill.

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  3. I think I must have been born with no sense of adventure.

    We never did any of that. I went to school and stayed there, and would have been in fear of my Mama finding out if I HAD done anything. We were not sure what she might do, but we were sure we wouldn't like it.

    I love to hear your stories of your adventures. I would have been scared to death!

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  4. Janie,
    Well, there are some nice memories. But, nothing you can brag about on a job application.

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  5. Sherman also spared the Brumby House - Sherman and Brumby were friends at West Point.

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  6. Deborah,
    Sherman played favorites!
    I read an interesting book about him and his Atlanta Campaign and his calvary. I can't remember the name of it, and I can't find it.
    One of the things it said was that the North was camped on the north side of the Chattahoochee (after the Kennesaw Mountain Battle) and the south was camped out on the other Atlanta side. Men on both sides, in a r & r, mood, went skinny dipping and even talked and kidded each other, much like the Cheatam Hlll event - and right in the middle of the Johnny Rebel bunch was a naked Sherman splashing and having a good time with them - if somebody had recognized him it may have changed history.

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  7. Deborah,
    I found the book. It is SHERMAN'S HORSEMEN by David Evans. I think he is an UGA history professor.
    Excellent on Sherman Atlanta Campaign.

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