Published Monday, April 20, 2009

McIntosh Trail scenic byway project moving along quickly

By Jeff Bishop

The Times-Herald

The McIntosh Trail Historic Preservation Society (MTHPS) -- which includes Coweta along with the counties of Butts, Spalding, Fayette and Carroll -- is moving along quickly in partnership with the Georgia Department of Transportation to designate a scenic byway route that will stretch across Coweta County and through downtown Newnan, Sharpsburg and Senoia.

The group met Monday night at the Veranda in Senoia to determine its next course of action.

Leslie Hollberg, president of the society, and her husband Sinclair have a firm connection to the McIntosh Trail as the owners of Double Cabins, with origins stretching back to the 1820s.

"McIntosh Road was a main trail for Indians, and then it afterwards turned into a stagecoach route," said Sinclair Hollberg.

The home, which now serves as a bed and breakfast, is nestled where the Okfuskee Trail and the McIntosh Trail once converged, a few miles east of Griffin.

The name "Double Cabins" comes not from the current Greek Revival structure, which was built in 1842 by Shatteen Coker Mitchell, but from a rougher sort of building that preceded it in the same general location.

"You can still see the foundation stones of the original building," said Sinclair Hollberg, a descendant of the Senoia Hollberg family.

A stagecoach stop was located across the street from Double Cabins, the Hollbergs say, and "there were two cabins about where the house is now," said Leslie Hollberg.

The Double Cabins -- two separate structures joined by a common front porch -- served as the area's post office, hotel, and general store, Hollberg said. He has early maps of the area that show Double Cabins as a major stop.

Double Cabins was originally conceived by Henry B. Williams, at about the time of the Creek treaty in the early 1800s. It became a stop for stagecoaches traveling between Indian Springs and Alabama, Augusta and Columbus, and even New York and New Orleans.

Apparently Williams was not as successful as he would have hoped. In 1842, his land was sold to help him meet some of his debts. The purchaser was Shatteen Coker Mitchell from Amelia County, Virginia.

A manufacturer of cotton gins, Mitchell moved to Spalding County in 1839 and built a gin factory in Griffin. In 1842, Mitchell constructed the current home across the road from the Double Cabins stagecoach stop.

Mitchell was Hollberg's ancestor, whom he described as an orphan who grew up near Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin.

"Eli Whitney was just out of Yale and he took a job as a tutor for some wealthy South Carolina planters," said Hollberg.

Mitchell "spent time at an orphanage in the same vicinity," said Hollberg. "Somehow, he figured out how to reproduce Eli's cotton gins."

He said that Whitney had "come up with a workable prototype for separating seeds from cotton," and Mitchell grew up and moved to Monticello, Georgia, where he "prospered pretty well in the manufacture and marketing of cotton gins" before eventually moving to the Griffin area.

The two-story, L-shaped structure features a gabled roof, a recessed two-story veranda, a center entrance with transom and side lights. A side wing was added in about 1900.

These days Double Cabins serves mainly as a weekend getaway.

"A lot of folks want to just get away from the kids for a day or two," said Sinclair. "We also see some travelers, some folks on vacation. They just don't want to stay at a motel. So we offer something a little different."