Humber-White House

The Lindrum-Humber-White House is located on the eastern part of Lot 3, Square 74 of the city of Milledgeville . The postal address is 424 West Hancock Street . The house site is one of the original lots of Milledgeville. In 1803 the Georgia legislature ordered the creation of a new town for the state's new capital. The legislature selected a section of land along the Oconee River near Fishing Creek that had a number of fresh water springs. By 1804 the first town plot was drawn by surveyor John Ragan. Commissioner met at the new town of Milledgeville in 1805 and began selling lots and naming the streets after the state's counties. The first lots sold for as little as 190 dollars and as much as 4,000 dollars. From 1805 up to 1872 the land that the house sits on changed hands several times. In 1872 Mrs. P.A. Lindrum acquired the land. Soon after buying the property she sold the land to Barbara Lindrum, her sister, but constructed the home, outbuildings, and fencing sometime between 1874 and 1876. Mrs. Lindrum paid about five thousand dollars for improvements to the property. In March of 1876 Barbara Lindrum became the sole owner of the property.

In 1890 Barbara Lindrum moved to New York . She sold the house to Robert C. Humber, an attorney, for two thousand dollars. Humber died a year later, leaving the property to his wife, Sarah Humber, and their six children. Ten years later Sarah Humber died leaving an equal share in the property to each of the six children.

The six children held onto their share of the property for the next three decades. In 1939 one of the Humber daughters, Emily, died. She left her one-sixth interest in the property to her husband, Dr. Joseph Hill White.

In 1884 Dr. White entered into the Marine Hospital Service (later known as the U.S. Public Health Service) and served until 1923. Eventually the five remaining Humber siblings deeded their interest in the property to Dr. White. In 1943, Dr. White gave the property to his two unmarried daughters, Josephine White and Roberta White. The daughters used the property in Milledgeville as a vacation home until the 1970's

Both sisters passed away in the early 1970's and the property changed hands several times. The Georgia College Foundation acquired the property in 1990. Renovation on the house began in April 2002 and was completed in August 2002. The house was completely re-wired and re-plumbed. Upon excavating in the rest of the house, workmen found an old, abandoned well constructed of whitish brick. There was no mortar between the bricks; they were simply placed on top of one another. Dr. Robert J. Wilson referred to the well as a "marvel of engineering." Georgia College & State University spent over $270,000 on renovating the house so that it would be a showplace for the Center for Georgia Studies. The center currently shares the Humber-White House with the Department of History and Geography.