Eerie 19th Century Buckhead Murders Never Solved

Well-liked and well-respected in the community, it was difficult to think of anyone harming Susan & Martin DeFoor.

On the morning of July 26, 1879, Martin Walker noticed something was amiss at the home of his grandparents, which was just across the road from his home. Susan DeFoor was 81 years old and her husband Martin a sturdy 73. They operated a ferry across the Chatahoochee River, which bore their name. It appeared no one was up at 6:30 in the morning, which was unusual. Walking around the back of the two-story country house, Walker noticed a back door was open. Inside he found his axe, one that he had left near his wood pile at his home. It was in the fireplace, ashes covering the blade. In the front bedroom he found his grandparents laying side by side, nearly decapitated by blows from that very axe. There was no sign of struggle.

Read more: Neighbor Newspapers – Murder of elderly couple sent shockwaves through community

Peachtree Pres was originally on Peachtree

The original Peachtree Road Presbyterian Church was completed in 1926. It stood on the corner of Peachtree Road and Mathieson Drive. Today the corner is home to a Wendy’s fast food restaurant.

I am sure it has occurred to anyone paying an iota of attention to Buckhead that Peachtree Presbyterian Church is not on Peachtree Road. For those not familiar with the country’s largest Presbyterian church it is actually on Roswell Road about half a mile down from the split with Peachtree.

The above image is a scan of the front of a church bulletin from the 1950s and shows the original church. Founded in 1910 in an empty store in Buckhead, it didn’t take the shape of a church until 1919 when ML Thrower donated the land on the corner of Peachtree Road and Mathieson Drive for a sanctuary. Peachtree Pres. takes its name from this original location even though it moved from the site more than five decades ago.

For the rest of the story check out my column in this week’s Northside Neighbor. 

A home to call my own: Thornton House

Lori, the girl and the boy and me in front of the Thornton House at Stone Mountain, Ga.

Three Thorntons – No. 2 – that’d be me – the boy, who is just Thornton, and the alleged ancestral homestead from 1790.

I am writing about the Thornton House in my Northside Neighbor column next week. This historic house was located on the grounds of the early High Museum of Art in Midtown for a few decades. As the name suggest, family lore holds that it was once a family house, as in my family.

After taking a tour I am not sure we can make any claim. Originally located in Greene County, Ga., it was built by Thomas Redmond Thornton – a Virginian who came to Georgia in the late 1700s. It is thought to have been built in 1790. The home was on Thornton’s indigo plantation. Indigo is a member of the pea family and cultivated to make blue dye.

The family story – again doesn’t really mesh when you talk to the tour guides – is that our Aunt Edna Thornton somehow claimed ownership over the house (even though it was owned by the Calhoun family when it was moved to Atlanta after being purchased by the Atlanta Art Association.) When the Memorial Arts Center was being planned in the mid 1960s it no longer had use for a historic house museum. Aunt Edna donated it to the Atlanta Historical Society, but they asked her to pay to have it moved. She took offense and instead donated it to Stone Mountain. As an aside the Stone Mountain collection of historic homes is much more impressive and interesting than what the history center has, which is a shame.

An episode of the hit television show Ghost Hunters was shot in the house. Apparently the Thornton House is haunted by a young girl who died in the early 1900s from polio. I am told she was not a Thornton. (That would be creepy.)

I am going to do some research, see if I can tie our family to this house. If I can, perhaps we can add a chapter to the Stone Mountain tour guides’ stories.