One day in the summer of 1991 I was sitting at my desk at Pebble Hill Plantation near Thomasville, Georgia. Someone had been spotted by a security officer driving and photographing on the dirt road that divided the plantation in half. This is a big place-3,000 acres, and one of some 70 “quail plantations” in the Red Hills region of south Georgia and North Florida. Security was necessary because there were occasional efforts to poach deer and turkey and in one reported incident, plant a marijuana crop on a neighboring plantation. And, safety for our visitors was our main concern because Pebble Hill had opened its doors as a museum in 1983.

I drove out to find out what was going on and met Hank Margeson, a professional photographer, standing alongside the dirt road that was flanked by miles of long leaf pines. He was carrying a bulky wooden box on a tripod. It turned out to be an old press camera that might have been in use in the 1890’s. He was, he said, from Albany, Georgia and was photographing the region’s shooting preserves, or “quail plantations.” He defined his work as “documentary,” and was using the old press camera because of its large -very large- format offering better details for architecture in particular.

Hank was both serious and enjoyable company, generously shared his ideas and hopes and spoke of the possibility that the University of Georgia Press would publish his work. We were immediate friends, had much to share. I admired Hank’s determination and skill from the start. He had been working on this project several years and had even mounted some local exhibitions of his work. I was eager to have him include Pebble Hill, which was anchored by one of the largest and most beautiful of the plantation homes in the region-or any region for that matter. We had been featured in Southern Living Magazine and were the subject of a segment on the Public Broadcasting System’s nationally televised series America’s Castles, so we were becoming a serious tourist attraction for the area-especially for the thousands of visitors passing through nearby Tallahassee.

There is history behind this story. When the railroads first began bringing northern tourists and outdoors men and women to Georgia, the track literally ended in Thomasville. Below was Florida- still malaria and yellow fever country. In addition to its comfortable winter weather, the “piney woods” of Thomasville offered health benefits- or so it was claimed-as well as outdoor adventure. Five large resort hotels, a carriage course around the town and a “Yankee Paradise” Park attracted winter visitors from the “frozen north.” Horseback riding, coaching, fishing for largemouth base (gigantic in the warm waters of nearby alligator-infested lakes, Iamonia and Miccossuki), and above all the chance to shoot quail (not “hunt”- in sporting parlance the dogs “hunted” and the humans “shot”). Dogs, horses, warm weather and shooting. An enticing alternative to freezing weather, snow and soot- filled air in Cleveland and other northern cities.

Some of the visitors were important statesmen and wealthy business men who “bought up” what had been the plantations of southerners down on their luck. In the post-Civil War years the fortunes of formerly wealthy planters plummeted. Pre-war fortunes had been largely invested in human capital – slaves. The new human capital deployed by northern entrepreneurs was different. In the northern plants and factories, labor was not engaged by force but purchased with often beggarly wages.

Many of the new owners were partners and beneficiaries of the boom in oil-and the monopolizing enterprise of John D. Rockefeller, whose Standard Oil Company made Cleveland the heartland of financial and industrial ambition. Among those who flourished there were the Hannas, the family and kin of Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio. Hanna emerged as a “king maker” in national politics by managing the campiagn of presidential aspirant William McKinley. Mark Hanna seems to have nourished ambitions of being president himself. In the Gilded Age, potential Republican presidential candidates were vetted in Thomasville by the wintering millionaires. A grand niece of Mark Hanna, Mrs. Parker Barrington Poe, or “Pansy” as she was universally known, owned Pebble Hill. It was said you could walk across Thomas County and never leave Hanna- owned land.

What emerges from Hank Margeson’s photographs is the love for the land, the joy of working with dogs and horses and, above all, the admiration for and pursuit of the bob white quail. The remaining long leaf pine stands inspire poetry and painting. Human reliance on horses and bird dogs to pursue the coveys of quail echo our once powerful connection with the natural world and the hunt. The practiced skill of using a shotgun to kill birds in flight evokes primal memories. And, Thomasville attracted many great out-door women as well as men.

Hank and I both grew up with shotguns and bird dogs. I was born in Burke County, “bird dog capital of the world.” Hank grew up in Albany, where another group of millionaires acquired about two dozen huge preserves. My time at Pebble Hill propelled my imagination into the age when Pebble Hill and the other plantations had been in their “hay day,” the period from the 1880’s through the 1920’s, before international air travel, and before the opening up of south Florida offered new fields of sport and, of course, the reality of year-round golfing.

Hank asked me if I would write the text to accompany his photographs and a partnership was born. As the project came to fruition Hank joined the faculty at North Georgia College and I carried a draft of the text I was writing to Dahlonega in the old “Gold Country” so we could hammer out the final text and narrow the final selection of Hank’s images. It was an exciting and joyful experience.

The University of Georgia Press did a great job of designing Quail Plantations and I was told they printed 5,000 copies-an amazingly big run for an academic press. One of our first book signings was at Stafford’s in Thomasville, Warren Stafford’s legendary establishment that equipped generations of bird hunter’s with their famous brier pants and field jackets. Hank and I were surprised and pleased by the book’s success-it seems it was the perfect gift for a Christmas or birthday for those most difficult-to-shop-for recipients: fathers, fathers-in-law and grandfathers. For a sentimental historian it was a pleasure to be part of Hank’s beautiful and remarkable creation. I will elaborate on my days at Pebble Hill in future articles.