The William Harris Homestead is near and dear to my heart. It was my great aunt’s vision to restore her husband’s family’s ancestor’s farm and use it for heritage education. Due to her hard work, it is on the National Register of Historic Places, and now over 40,000 school children have toured the Homestead. It boasts a log house, smoke house, salt house, corn crib, barn, cemetery, and natural spring. Everything sits in its original place. It’s such a peaceful and beautiful place.
A few years ago, I spent some time photographing it, and I also organized a homeschool field trip there in 2010. The field trip at the Homestead is fabulous. Here’s a description:
“Take a tour through the William Harris Homestead to learn about the lives of Georgia’s early white settlers in the 19th century. The Homestead is on the National Register of Historic Places, and it boasts a log house, barn, smoke house, cemetery, natural spring, and other out buildings that are standing in their original places. Participants will be divided into four groups and rotated through four units as follows 1) log house with spinning wheel/loom demonstration, 2) the cellar, candle-making, herb garden and cemetery, 3) a Civil War interpreter will talk about daily life as a soldier, and 4) natural spring, a talk about the Native Americans who inhabited the area at the time, and a hay ride. Participants will also view a live, sheep-herding demonstration!”
You can read more about the field trip and my experience organizing it in the column I wrote for the Barrow Journal. Click here to read that. And if there is any homeschooler out there interested in participating in one of these field trips, be sure to e-mail me at writetospabis (at) gmail (dot) com.
But you don’t have to participate in a field trip to see the Homestead. It’s open to the public on the first and third Saturdays of the month from 10-2pm. It’s just a 45 minute drive from Athens, located near Monroe, Georgia.
