Brick Store

Brick Store. More Than Just A Store. Home. Store. Courthouse. Stagecoach stop. Post office. Temperance Lodge. Each name describes Brick Store at some time in its long history. The building, constructed as the residence of Martin Kolb, sometime before 1822, still stands in northeast Newton County. Brick Store also names the community that grew up around it. Today, the building and its rich history are preserved by the Newton County Historical Society., Stagecoach Stop , Brick Store sat along the early roads through Newton County, long before US Hwy 278 crossed the land. When stage coaches traveled the area before the Civil War, Brick Store served as a stop. Passengers could get food or rest at a nearby inn., During the 1850s and 1860s, owner Isaac H. Parker built a thriving carriage industry around Brick Store. This is reflected in the 1850 census records which enumerated 7 other adult males in Parker's household with the occupation of carriage maker. 1 originally from England, 1 from Germany, and 5 from the United States. Parker also owned 5 slaves, but their occupations were not listed. Just a few households away were another carriage maker, a wagon maker, a carpenter, and a chair maker., Kidnapping Victim Found at Brick Store , An interesting account of events at Brick Store in 1894 appeared in a later newspaper article. Lovick Rowe, then 15 years old, was in Monroe, Georgia, on a trip to buy supplies with his father. The boy disappeared, and eyewitnesses told the father that someone had put the boy in their wagon and driven off. Lovick's father and the sheriff tracked the wagon to Brick Store where they discovered the boy bound in the wagon. The kidnappers were found in the inn behind Brick Store. Apparently several such incidents occurred in which boys were kidnapped to be sold in the logging camps of middle and south Georgia., A Monument to History , On June 30, 1933, the Sergeant Newton Chapter of the Daughters of The American Revolution placed a bronze marker on a granite boulder at Brick Store to commemorate its history. The plaque refers to the nearby inn, the remains of which were still present at that time. A tablet added later acknowledges C. M. Jordan's donation of Brick Store to the Newton County Historical Society In 1971., Independent Order of Good Templars , In 1879, then-owner Peter P. Knox leased the second floor of Brick Store to the trustees of Brick Store Lodge No. 479 of the Independent Order of Good Templars, a strict temperance organization. The organization was dedicated to abstinence from alcohol, but distinguished itself from other temperance organizations by the fact that it did not exclude women or people of color.