Family Home of Thomas Yancey - which still stands. Thomas Yancey and wife were buried in graves - now unmarked.

The Yancey-Johnson-Meyer House located on Meyer Farm Road, Winterville, Oglethorpe County, Georgia, was built by Thomas Yancey in 1842. It is recorded that the house was standing on the property when 1,175 acres were acquired by Nathan Johnson in 1847 from the executors of Thomas Yancey's estate (Deed Book R, Page p.57). Thomas, his wife, Sarah Hicks, and one or two children are buried near the house.

This area, better know as Arnoldsville, settled in the early 1800's by Virginia's who established tobacco, cotton, and silkworm plantations, was not incorporatd until 1969. In earlier days the site's proximity to a Cherokee trail linking Virginia to the Mississippi River made it a popular point for meetings and trading. Colonial governors established a settlement there in 1770s to regulate Indian trade. The settlement was called Cherokee Corner until 1896. Mr. Edwin Shaw owned the town store and placed a post office in the town in 1894. In honer of Mr. Shaw's civic achievement, the town was named Edwin. In 1896, N. D. Arnold, a wealthy landowner, bought both the store and the post office from Mr. Edwin and the town was named Arnoldsville. As the plantation system began to wane, Mr. Arnold divided 5,000 acres of his land into small farms and sold them "on liberal terms" to encourage settlement of the area. With the sudden availability of land, new people came to Arnoldsville. As the town began to grow, the new residents improved the schools and establised new buisnesses, such as gin, saw mill, bank, and a bonded warehouse.

John Bruno Meyer bought the Yancey-Johnson house from N. D. Arnold in 1908, and it was in the Meyer family up until the year 2010. From the floor plan, although this house has an enclosed stair, it also has a very wide center hall. The enclosed stair leads to the three bedrooms on the second floor, the third room being poitioned from the space of the hallway below. A passageway is left from the stair across the front of the house to the other rooms upstairs. Closets were added in the bedrooms by the Meyer family. The room to the rear of the living room, was built for a commissary in which provisions needed in runnning the plantation were stored, the room later became a bedroom. A door opens from this room onto the back porch, probably for easy access of those who used it. A cellar, located under this room, was in use until water seepage made it necessary to fill it in. The other additions on the first floor include a kitchen and dining room, both added after John Meyer moved into the house. The bathroom was added after 1940. The front entrance is the most commanding feature of the house. The door is four feet wide, has a seven-light transom, and five lights on either side with wooden panels used beneath the glass section. Tuscan pilasters are used on either side of the door to support a full-entablature above the transom. The one-story front porch has double columns, which suggest the influence of the Federal period of architecture superimposed on the older Georgian "plain style".

End chimneys, six feet wide and thirty inches deep, were originally of brick laid on a granite base although one was replaced in 1917. Granite has been used for the new chimney. The original chimney that remains has been plastered to protect the clay mortar used when it was built. All fireplace openings have been closed, and the house is heated with gas heaters. You will find engraved in the base of the chimney "CCM 1917", which stands for Charles Curtis Meyer, who was the only child of John Bruno Meyer and Mary "Mamie" Jane Stewart.