Harris-Pearson-Walker House in Augusta Georgia - This was the first house built in the Village of Harrisburg near Augusta and the residence of its founder, Ezekiel Harris, from 1797 until 1807. The Pearson-Walker family then owned the home from 1809 until 1873.
Harris-Pearson-Walker House
When the house was built, tobacco was the primary cash crop in Georgia. Liberal land grants and rich soil attracted tobacco planters who had depleted their farmlands farther north.
Towns sprang up around the tobacco inspection stations and warehouses. Ezekiel Harris came to this area of Georgia from Edgefield County, South Carolina, to establish his own tobacco warehouse. In 1794, Harris bought 323½ acres of the White House Tract and built his home in 1797. On the rest of the land, he laid out a village he named after himself – Harrisburg. He hoped that this new village would rival Augusta in the tobacco trade.
The house is a rare example of the Georgian style of architecture popular in the 1700s, with elements of the transitional style between Georgian and Federal popular after the Revolutionary War. Structural evidence suggests that the house was constructed in two stages, with the eastern side of the building erected later than the western side.
The most striking architectural feature is the front entranceway with a design similar to those in Palladio Londonensis. The door is flanked with fluted pilasters on pedestals supporting an entablature ornamented with a pulvinated frieze. More subtle architectural features are the beaded clapboards and chamfered porch supports, expensive decorative details that indicate Mr. Harris had considerable wealth.
The gambrel roof, as seen in English handbooks after 1733, extends to form the roofs of the front and rear porches. The low 68°-slope is characteristic of this period, when the tendency was to lower roof heights. Unusual in southern Georgian style, the gambrel roof was predominately seen farther north in the Virginia and Delaware areas.
The design of the interior represents the fashion of the late 18th century for plaster walls rather than the earlier paneled ones. The trim itself preserves the academic forms typical of the pre-Revolution period. The large room on the west, the parlor, is enriched with dog-ear motifs on the mantle and doorway. The mantle has a pulvinated frieze and dentil molding, and the breaks on either side of the entablature are simplifications of the end consoles illustrated in Swan’s British Architect, a popular builder’s guide of the period. Another unusual feature is the arched ceiling of the hall and differing wainscoting on the first floor rooms.
The house is typical of southern plantation houses with a central hall and double tiered piazzas front and back and has been restored to its original blue-gray color with dull red trim.
Thomas Goree Little began restoration in 1962. The house was reputed to have been the site of the Siege of Augusta and home of Robert Mackay, but it has been determined that the structure was not the Mackay Trading Post nor was it the site of the Siege of Augusta.
The Harris-Pearson-Walker House, now known as the Ezekiel Harris House. The house has been documented under the name, White House, by the National Park Service's Historic American Buildings Survey.
Hours of Operation
The house is open Tuesday through Friday by appointment only and Saturday, 10 am to 4:30 pm.
Phone, Location & Website
Phone: 706-737-2820 - Location: 1822 Broad St. in the Harrisburg—West End Historic District
History
When the house was built, tobacco was the primary cash crop in Georgia. Liberal land grants and rich soil attracted tobacco planters who had depleted their farmlands farther north. 
