Jacob Fox Gould Homestead
The Jacob Fox Gould farmhouse, located in West Chatham County, Georgia, was once a part of a 750-acre plantation situated along the inland, rice-growing corridor of the south branch of the Little Ogeechee River and the heart of the Bethel Community. Referred to locally as simply, “the Farm,” it is a rare, surviving intact example of a wood-frame antebellum cottage built in the vernacular interpretation of the Georgian style. Known as a Tidewater South Raised Cottage, the hall-and-parlor, one and a half story house was considered a very fine house when first built.
In 1809, as the 21-year Jacob Fox Gould came of age and into his inheritance, he purchased a 250-acre tract south of the Little Ogeechee River from his future father-in-law, Joseph Davies (Davis) in April, married Miss Ann Davis (1793-1862) in October and began his new life as a small-scale planter. Associated with the property are dozens of enslaved men, women, and children whose forced, unpaid labor allowed the Gould family to obtain their land holdings and maintain plantation operations. It is through this legacy that the contributions of the Gould family were possible.
The survival of the house itself in its present condition is something of a miracle, a testament to the series of owners, most notably Mrs. Georgia Foster Fawcett (1897-1993), who understood the historical value of the Farm and forewent 20th and 21st century modifications to lovingly maintain the integrity of the 19th century house.
This site preserves and shares more than 30 years of historical research by local historian Elizabeth "Chica" Arndt. Centered on the Jacob Fox Gould House, the Gould family, and the surrounding Bethel community, this archive serves to share her work to inspire further scholarship and preserve what history may be lost forever in light of rapid development and loss of generational memory.
The Jacob Fox Gould house remains a private residence. It is open for private tours, by appointment only, for descendants of families who lived and worked there, educators, researchers focusing on local history, traditional building practices, and 19th-century plantations. The Chatham County Board of Commissioners designated it as a Chatham County Historic Site in July 2024.
Chatham County-Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission Local Historic Property Designation staff report. May 1, 2024.
In 1866, the year after the end of the Civil War, Jacob Fox Gould (1788-1868) deeded his 700-acre plantation and house to his youngest son Robert Henry Gould (1834-1914). Aged and impaired by the lingering effects of a head injury caused by a strike from a Union soldier's rifle butt in 1864, he signed with an “X.” Jacob added a paragraph declaring “that it was not his wish or desire that his son or heirs shall ever bring the estate hereby conveyed into Hotchpot.” By 1916, the remaining 40 acres with the old farmhouse was sold out of the family. The kind of rural farming system that had sustained four generations of the Gould family had come to an end.
