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Keith Plantation, Canton, GA

Posted on 9/16/10
The Keith Plantation is one of the oldest houses in Cherokee County. It was built using kiln-dried bricks after the original home was burned in 1865 (UPDATE! Read comments for additional history!) and sits facing the Etowah River. The Keith Plantation was surrounded by hundreds of acres of farmland. After the Civil War some of the land was given to the freed slaves and now make up the Nineteen and Pearidge communities. According to the latest tax records, the home now sits on 10 acres. You can see the Keith Cemetery, surrounded by fencing, across the street from Walmart.

The rumors are that during the Civil War when the Union Army was marching through Georgia, the Keith's buried valuables and hid food in the trees to prevent the Union from finding them. When the soldiers found the food, they burned the house and hung the family patriarch from a tree but he was saved when the ropes knot was caught on the tree and it failed to break his neck.

I've also heard that the remains of slave quarters can be found, when I visited it was hard to tell since it was so over grown with kudzu. There was also said to be an Indian burial ground on the property, which a large rock once sat upon and was moved to the nearby college in the 1940's.

An article appeared in the Cherokee Tribune in 2006 with the Pearidge Community hoping to relocate the home and save it from being demolished. The following photos were taken in 2008 from the road. When I visited, the barns were overgrown with kudzu, the street was more like a sidewalk through the kudzu and weeds.

2/10/2014 Update: The street is now "fenced" off and you can no longer walk to the end of York Drive. I cannot tell you what the condition of the home was, I could only see the roof from the road. I also want to say that the information I found about Keith Plantation came from news articles, I didn't make any of this up.
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