Antebellum-era house becomes a museum in west Cobb

Apr. 11—WEST COBB — More than two decades since it was last occupied, the wooden house that fronts Green Meadows Preserve, a former plantation house and Union field hospital, opened its doors to the public Saturday — this time, as a museum.

The county acquired the land that became Green Meadows Preserve, at the intersection of Dallas Highway and Old Hamilton Road, after a 2006 bond referendum. The Green/Bullard museum is the latest of its amenities, which include woodland trails and a Native American medicinal garden, to come online.

Built in 1840, only two families have owned the house: the Greens and the Bullards, who purchased the house from the Greens around 1890.

The house has sat empty for the last two decades, according to Judy Bullard, of Marietta, who attended the opening with two of her nieces. The house was restored to its 1880 state, which meant the removal of more recent, modern additions, said Kevin Hill, education director in the Cobb parks department's natural resources division.

The restoration, done by Leatherwood, a Tennessee-based company, was completed in 2019, Hill said. The house's opening, scheduled for spring of 2020, was postponed due to the pandemic.

Charlie Monroe, natural resources manager at Cobb Parks, said each room in the restored house represents a different time period.

The first is dedicated to Cherokee and pioneer life, from about 1830 to 1860. The second covers the period from 1860 to 1880. The third focuses on the Bullard family, and the fourth is an information center with literature detailing the rest of the park's offerings.

Illuminated only by natural light, the spare house is furnished with odds and ends from 19th century American life, including a cotton spinning wheel and a rope-framed bed.

A placard above the bed explains: "Early beds had rope supports instead of springs. The ropes had to be tightened each night with a special key to keep the ropes from sagging." (For those who are wondering, rope-framed beds are not the origin of the phrase "sleep tight," the placard notes.)

The first family to own the house, the Greens, were more than a dozen strong when they had the house built in 1840. Several enslaved people worked on the property, according to Hill.

Near Cobb's Kennesaw and Lost mountains, the house was conveniently located during the Civil War, and was used by the Union and Confederate armies as a field hospital, according to one placard. As his army marched to Kennesaw Mountain, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman used it for a day as his headquarters, Hill said.

Sometime around 1890 — the same year Dwight D. Eisenhower was born, for reference — the Greens sold the house to Calvin Jasper and Narcissus Frey Bullard.

"The Bullards would farm the property for the next 100 years," one of the placards notes, growing corn, wheat, beans, okra, cotton and watermelon.

Cecil Bullard — son of Calvin Jasper and Narcissus Frey Bullard — and his wife, Lois, were the last Bullards to live on the property. His niece, Judy Bullard grew up in Marietta, but recalled visiting the house as a little girl, back when today's Dallas Highway was a dirt road and the round-trip was taken on a mule-driven wagon.

"It took us all day to get out here and back," she said with a laugh.

The house has sat empty since Cecil and Lois Bullard died some 20 years ago, according to the Bullards who visited Saturday. When asked why the family had given up the house and the 112 acres around it, Kelie Bullard Crowe was blunt: "Nobody was going to be a farmer."

She is glad the house and land around it has since become something anyone can enjoy, she said; many of her friends now walk the park's trails.

West Cobb Commissioner Keli Gambrill attended the opening. Years before she was elected to her current post, she sat on the Green Meadows Preserve's steering committee, contributing to the park's design.

The Green Meadows Preserve was first conceived after then-west Cobb Commissioner Helen Goreham shot down the Bullards' request to have the land rezoned for a mixed-use development, according to area resident Paul Paulson. That land would make for a pretty good park, Paulson thought.

His efforts to turn it into a park snowballed, and in 2006, Cobb voters approved a $40 million parks bond, the proceeds of which were used to fund its purchase from the Bullards and that of several other undeveloped parcels in the county. It proved so popular, Cobb voters approved another $40 million bond two years later, Paulson said.

"It started this whole preservation movement," he said of Green Meadows Preserve. "It made my whole life worthwhile."

The Green/Bullard museum will open to the public on the second Saturday of each month, or by appointment. Eventually, it will offer living history days that focus on early pioneer farm life, Civil War medicine and Cherokee life.