3931 Peachtree Street
Atlanta, GA 30319
Phone: +1 404 233 2794
Hours of Operation: 1p-4p third Sunday of the month
A Brief History:
The Solomon Goodwin House sits on
over an acre of trees and lawn right on Peachtree Road in
Brookhaven. It is the remains of a 600 acre farm owned by Solomon
Goodwin in the 1830s. The current owners are his
great-great-great-great-granddaughters, who claim if you listen
carefully, the house can tell stories about the changes it has seen
since Peachtree Road was just a wagon trail.
The homestead first became know for hospitality to travelers heading
to Marthasville, renamed Atlanta. Later generations fed Civil War
refugees and Great Depression poor.
In what was once Creek Indian land,
the area's first white settler was Harris Goodwin, a South
Carolinian who homesteaded a tract on both sides of what is now
Peachtree Road in the early 1830s. Harris Goodwin later brought his
father, Solomon, to the area. The Goodwin home and a small graveyard
in which they are buried survive at 3931 Peachtree Road near the
intersection of North Druid Hills Road.
The original log cabin on the Echota Indian Trail was expanded in
the 1830s and 1840s into the present home. In 1864, it was a
landmark for Federal troops closing in on Atlanta during the Civil
War. Goodwin descendants still own the property. The home is the
oldest existant house in DeKalb County. It is open to the public from
1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the third Sunday of every month, and a family
member is usually there to serve as a guide.
Goodwin House is managed and maintained by Lynda Martin Rule and
previously by her father Albert Lynn Martin, Jr.