The Spruill Center for the Arts
A Pioneer Homestead
James T. Spruill (1816-1896) settled and began to farm a significant portion of the land which is present-day Dunwoody in the early 1840s. The first structure built on the property was a log house, typical of its day and common among pioneer families in this part of the country. Family members recall that the house was two stories tall and that the original walls were constructed of large, round logs. The log house survives today only in the memories of older family members and their stories, because it was torn down in 1905 after becoming infested with termites.
The oldest extant part of the current structure was built in 1867 as an addition to the log house. It consists of two rooms, located in the back of the house. One room currently houses the history exhibit and the other has been converted to a rest room and hallway. These rooms were once a kitchen/living area (the family refers to it as the "keeping room") and an extra bedroom, respectively. The addition was made in order to accommodate the large family of Thomas Franklin Spruill (1846-1920), James' son. Open hearth cooking was done in the large stone fireplace. The corner cabinet has five let-in shelves and an enclosed cabinet. The "keeping room" has original wooden wall paneling, which the family switched from horizontal to vertical in the 1880s to give the room a more modern look.
The Spruill Family
The Spruills are among the first settlers of Dunwoody and the earliest English settlers of North America. Dr. Godfrey Spruill (b. 1650) immigrated with his wife to the New World from England in the 1690s, settling in the Albemarle Sound area of North Carolina. For the next five generations, Spruills played an important role in the religious and political life of the fledgling colony.
By the late 1700s, a Spruill had settled in Abbeville, South Carolina. When the first U.S. census was taken in 1790, a William Spruill was living in Abbeville with a wife and several children. Judging from the will of William's father, John Spruill (d. 1808), we can surmise the Spruills had lived in Abbeville for quite some time and were prosperous farmers and land owners.
In the early 1800s, William's oldest son Stephen (b. 1787) moved to DeKalb County, Georgia. The 1830 census shows William later joined his son in DeKalb, where he died in 1846. In the early 1800s, the Cherokee and Creek Indians had ceded a good deal of land to Georgia and Alabama. Georgia used a lottery system to distribute this land, and Stephen Spruill obtained land in Sandy Springs that stretched from Long Island Creek to what is now Mt. Vernon Road.
In 1842, Stephen's son, James Spruill (1816-1896), married Miss Millie Adams (1821-1896). They moved from Sandy Springs to the current site of the Spruill Homeplace, and were among the first white settlers of Dunwoody. James' son, Thomas Franklin Spruill (1846-1920), a private in the Confederate Army, is listed as having surrendered to Union troops in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1865. After Thomas married Naomi Martin (1844-1941) in 1867, the "keeping room" addition was added to the rear of the original Homeplace to accommodate the growing family.
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