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Allenhurst in 1910
Liberty lore
libloreallenhstore
The old Allenhurst store - photo by Photo provided.
Lisa Dunlevie recently asked for information on Allenhurst and the Dunlevie house. She lives in California and her 90-year-old father-in-law is Jack Dunlevie, son of Ernest Dunlevie, who built the Dunlevie Lumber Co.
That company was responsible for much of what is now Allenhurst.
I have a copy of an interview that Bill Cox had with Ernest Dunlevie's chauffeur, Wardlaw Griner in July of 1968:
"Ernest V. Dunlevie was reared in Toronto, Canada.  His grandfather came from England or Ireland to Canada in the British Army... Dunlevie came to the United States as a bookkeeper (later salesman) for a lumber company in Olean, New York...
"His second wife was Catherine, formerly married to Barney Oldfield, the famous racing car driver.
"When he came to Georgia, he brought some men with him from West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Dunlevie lost his health and the timber gave out in Liberty County.  He went into bankruptcy in 1928.  A Mr. Fetter was appointed receiver of the bankrupt company who operated the mill through 1928 and then sold the property to satisfy the creditors. Dunlevie was ill with cancer for four or five years before he went bankrupt.  He went to John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He shot and killed himself in Baltimore in 1928.
The Dunlevies adopted two children in 1919, named Jack and Jill.  Jack had polio later.  
"There was talk of moving the courthouse from Hinesville to Allenhurst around 1921-22, but nothing ever came of this.
"Lumber was shipped to various points usually through the port of Savannah.
"Probably 75 to 100 small houses were located on both sides of the present Dunlevie Road near Gaskins' and Swindells' houses and on the industrial site.  Mill workers lived in these little houses.  The logging interests were Southern Timber Co. and the mill was Dunlevie Lumber Co. Ernest Dunlevie owned both.
"A friend of Dunlevie's was Capt. William Robinson, also from Toronto, Canada, who located the tract of timber in Liberty County about 1903 which Dunlevie bought.  The Byers Allen Lumber Co. built most of the houses and mill in Allenhurst.  Cypress lumber for the first houses came from Herbertville Lumber Co. near Waycross.  Allenhurst was named for Byers Allen.  
"Mr. Allen discontinued his sawmill after a few years and Ernest Dunlevie purchased 200 acres of land as a sawmill site from E.P. Miller for $500 in September of 1909.  His brother Herbert G. Dunlevie was treasurer of the new lumber company and J. F. Wadsworth, secretary.  Within a short while the executives and over a thousand employees raised the mill to the rank of the second largest in the Southeast with an annual payroll of a quarter of a million dollars.  The town was owned by the company; the store, hotel, school, church, clubhouse, doctor's and dentist's offices and the employees' residences.
"Another big mill near Allenhurst was at Joslyn, right in front of Brodie's house near the railroad where Dennis Waters' Cedar Hill Trailer Park if now located.  There was another big mill located at Aimar located between the present Walthourville and Ludowici on the railroad.  Both were discontinued before 1912.
"Dr. Gibson from Burke County, the first company doctor in Allenhurst, lived in a two-storey house next door to Dennis Waters' office at first.  Each employee paid $1 per month for medical services.  Dr. Gibson later bought and lived in the present John Sikes house and had his office in the present Dennis Waters' office building.  Common labor at the sawmill was from 75 cents to $1.25 per day, which was about average for the time...
"The world's speed record for a train (at that time) was on a 6 mile stretch between Allenhurst and McIntosh.  Engineer was Stonewall Winn and the train was composed of one engine, one car and a baggage car.  The speed was 92 miles per hour.  Stonewall was reared at the old Winn home at Flemington (now the residence of Mary Fox and Rick and Gail Evans and family-the old H. L. Stacy Sr. house)...
"There was a school in Allenhurst in front of the Shuman (Pace) house near what is now Waters' pond. Fraser Rambo's mother, Nina Way (Holliman) and Gladys Hendry (Estelle Caswell's sister) taught there at one time.  Religious services were also held there...
"The mill had a 650 horsepower engine.  It had its own generating plant and had electric streetlights in Allenhurst.  People from Hinesville went to Allenhurst just to see the streetlights. Dunlevie Road (then called Baconton Church Road or Tibet Road) was paved in 1956-57...
"Dunlevie allowed no fences in Allenhurst.
The E.V. Dunlevie house was built on the site of the original Charlton Hines home... Gloria Miller was the last to live in this house and later it burned.)
The present John Sikes house was originally the Herbert G. Dunlevie home.  Herbert married Marianne Ward, a nurse from Savannah.  The house was built for the newlyweds and cost $8,000 when built.  Hutto was the chief carpenter. (This house is the one Dennis and Jan Waters bought and donated to the Miller Trust for their office.)
The William Cox house was built by Dunlevie for Capt. William Robinson, superintendent of woods.  His wife was named Edith and she fell down the stairs in this house and broke her neck and died.  She is buried in Flemington Presbyterian Cemetery.  David Starr Owens, who owned and operated a pine products plant, bought the house when the mill went bankrupt and then William Cox bought the house from Owen's widow in 1959.  (Cox's daughter, Amanda, lives in the house now.)...
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