DR. Chapmon Powell's Cabin

DR. Chapmon Powell's Cabin. DeKalb County, Georgia. Around 1826, when John Quincy Adams was president, Dr. Chapmon Powell built this one room log cabin near today's intersection of Clairmont Avenue and North Decatur Road. A prominent physician, he was one of the earliest residents to settle in the Decatur area. Dr. Powell raised eight children in the cabin with his wife Betsey and likely also practiced medicine and botany here. Notably, Dr. Powell not only treated white settlers in the area but was trusted by Native American patients as well. They called his cabin "The Medicine House.", The keyed-log construction of the cabin is extremely strong; perhaps even strong enough to withstand a tornado. The red clay between the logs, known as chinking, was a way to regulate temperature. In the summer, the clay would be removed to create air flow in the cabin. When the weather turned cold in the fall it was replaced to hold in the heat. Most daily activates would have happened on the main level while the loft upstairs was reserved for sleeping only., Dr. Powell served as the sheriff of DeKalb County from 1833-1834 and was a member of the Georgia Legislature in 1836. In 1850, after the death of his wife, Dr. Powell moved to Atlanta with his daughter Martha and built a house at the corner of Peachtree and Ellis streets. At one time he owned a large amount of land in the city, including what is now the Five Points area in Downtown Atlanta. Powell's son-in-law, Washington Jackson Houston, purchased the cabin and surrounding land and built his house around the existing structure. The mill he built on the south fork of Peachtree Creek was converted to DeKalb's first electric power plant in 1904. The county's first electric light illuminated the Houston home that same year., (caption) Daguerreotype half-length portrait of Dr. Chapmon Powell. This image was taken by George A. Jeffers. Image from the Powell family photographs, VIS 8, Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center.