Late in 1850, an infant named Ellen was born in Crawfordville to a young enslaved couple named Eliza and Harry. Over the next dozen years, the family grew in size with the births of Tim, Dora, Fanny, and Quinnie. This group became an indispensible part of the operations of the Old Bird House, located just a few blocks from the county courthouse and the train depot. The politically prominent visitors who came to this dwelling from far and wide expressed satisfaction in the care provided by the two parents and their children. Well into the twentieth century, Dora lived in close proximity to her birthplace and her site of a servitude that stretched past slavery.

What Stephens termed his “town lot” was sustained by a handful of other enslaved Georgians. Mat and Dick (who had become partners under the authority of Rev. Williamson Bird) died in their seventies during the early post-emancipation years. The skilled carpenter George took Anna to be his wife and the couple’s tumultuous partnership continued through the 1875 demolition of the house and the erection of a new expanded “Liberty Hall.” This two-story structure, whose wide halls aided its owners’ mobility, now lays at the heart of the AH Stephens State Park. The family of Harry and Eliza (who resided in a nearby house they constructed and owned) provided a key element of continuity.

On the eve of the Civil War, a correspondent of the country’s biggest newspaper purported to know why Stephens’ house was termed “Liberty Hall.” “Servants are always at hand to extend the hospitalities of the mansion,” he explained, in focusing on the graciousness shown to white visitors intended to put them all at ease. A later account explained that the owner of the property expected the throng of guests– invited and uninvited alike– to rid themselves of cares just as he did while at his residence. They were to do as they pleased within the walls of his dwelling.

The enjoyment and ease of white visitors relied each and every day on the efforts of Liberty Hall’s Black caretakers. The family of Harry and Eliza Stephens was a regular feature in white Stephens correspondence; Dora Stephens dispatched news about the house to its owner while he was away. That evidence can be put alongside other sources to establish how the family of Harry and Eliza balanced work on behalf of Alexander Stephens and his guests with a quest for autonomy achieved by considerable enterprise in farming and related businesses.

Image Credit: Stephens family of Harry, Quinnie, Eliza, Fanny, Ellen, Dora, and Tim, in 1866 G. Gable, “Summer Scene,” New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2005.