- Collection:
- Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation Presentation Slide Collection, 1968-2000
- Title:
- New Echota Worcester House
- Creator:
- Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation
- Contributor to Resource:
- Scott, Winfield, 1786-1866
Worcester, S. A. (Samuel Austin), 1798-1859
Georgia Historical Commission - Date of Original:
- 1970-09
- Subject:
- Architecture
Historic sites--Georgia--Gordon County
United States--Georgia--Gordon County, Cherokee Indian Site
Indians of North America--Georgia
Newspaper buildings
Indians of North America--Antiquities
Indigenous Peoples of North America
Cultural property--Protection
Historic preservation--Georgia
Historic buildings--Conservation and restoration - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Gordon County, 34.50336, -84.87575
- Medium:
- color slides
historic preservation
historic buildings - Type:
- Still Image
- Format:
- image/jp2
- Description:
- From the National Register for Historic Places application form prepared in 1973 by Benjamin Levy, Senior Historian, National Park Service: The Cherokee capital, New Echota, was a lost village until 1953. That year, research culminated in the discovery of the exact site, a corn field near Calhoun, close to the confluence of the Oostanaula and Coosawattee Rivers. On a knoll overlooking the village site, a dilapidated frame house stood which later proved to be the home and mission school built in 1827 by the Reverend Samuel A. Worcester, a New Englander. In 1954 and several years thereafter, archaeological excavations determined the sites of other original buildings and uncovered objects used during the Cherokee occupation. In 1956, the site of New Echota including the ramshackle remains of the Worcester House was deeded to the Georgia Historical Commission--approximately 200 acres in all. Soon thereafter the restoration of Worcester House was begun under the direction of Henry Chandlee Forman, a well-known Maryland based restoration architect. New Echota today consists of the Worcester House; the reconstructed Supreme Court Building; the reconstructed Print Shop; a restored tavern moved in from another site; and a modern visitor's center. (Conflicting evidence on the original appearance of the Council House has so far prevented its reconstruction.) The Worcester House (circa l827), the only original building on the site. It is a combined dwelling house and mission school; a two-story frame structure with a two-tiered piazza and outside stairs to the second story school floor. A central chimney quickly reminds even the most casual visitor that the Reverend Samuel Worcester was a New Englander. Several other Native American dwellings were at New Echota, as were a number of stores. Accompanying Cherokee developments in government, law, and religion was a general adoption of the American frontier economy. This Native American nation of farmers (93% of the Cherokees, according to the Federal Removal Census of 1835, were agrarian) tilled their land and lived in houses of trimmed or unhewn logs, clapboards or stone, depending on their individual circumstances. Some Cherokees owned African American slaves. Thus, with a national newspaper and printing office, a legislative hall, a supreme court house, a mission station, and several dwellings and commercial establishments in its capital town, the Cherokee Nation possessed a dramatic and unusual seat of government. It was ironic that while the Cherokees were perfecting this borrowed national mechanism for the survival of their homeland, the people from whom they adopted that political system were actively pursuing their demise. By 1835, President Jackson ministered over 5 years of unresolved negotiations for removal of the Cherokee. The Cherokees, under the skillful leadership of John Ross consistently rejected treaty offerings. In exasperation government agents at Red Clay, Tennessee, after the rejection of the Schermerhorn treaty, in October 1835, called a meeting at New Echota. There on December 29, in the presence of a scant number of Native Americans, they signed an infamous treaty with a minority faction and established the pretext for removal. Significance: New Echota The expulsion of the Cherokee was inevitable with the outlaw bands set loose by this questionable document. Looting, burning, and confiscating, white colonists quickly drove the Native Americans to despair, Hope was finally lost when General Winfield Scott took charge of removal, establishing his command at New Echota in 1838. Variant names include: New Echota Worcester House. See ref# 70000869 (New Echota) https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/upload/national-register-listed-20240710.xlsx
- External Identifiers:
- Metadata URL:
- https://dlg.usg.edu/record/gthp_gthp-slides_348
- Digital Object URL:
- https://dlg.usg.edu/record/gthp_gthp-slides_348#item
- IIIF manifest:
- https://dlg.usg.edu/record/gthp_gthp-slides_348/presentation/manifest.json
- Language:
- eng
- Additional Rights Information:
- Please contact holding institution for information regarding use and copyright status.
- Holding Institution:
- Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation
- Rights:
-
