DR. Chapmon Powell's Cabin

Around 1826, when John Quincy Adams was president, Dr. Chapmon Powell built a one-room log cabin near today's intersection of Clairmont Avenue and North Decatur Road and became one of the earliest residents to settle in the Decatur area. A prominent physician, he raised eight children there with his wife Betsey and likely also practiced medicine and botany in the cabin. He treated white settlers in the area and was also trusted by Native American patients, who called his cabin "The Medicine House." The cabin's keyed-log construction was extremely strong, and the red clay between the logs, known as chinking, helped regulate temperature by being removed in summer to create airflow and replaced in fall to hold in heat. Most daily activities took place on the main level, while the loft upstairs was used only for sleeping. Dr. Powell served as sheriff of DeKalb County from 1833-1834 and was a member of the Georgia Legislature in 1836. In 1850, after his wife's death, he moved to Atlanta with his daughter Martha and built a house at the corner of Peachtree and Ellis streets. At one time he owned a large amount of land in the city, including what is now the Five Points area in Downtown Atlanta. His son-in-law, Washington Jackson Houston, purchased the cabin and surrounding land and built his house around the existing structure. The mill Houston built on the south fork of Peachtree Creek was converted to DeKalb's first electric power plant in 1904, and the county's first electric light illuminated the Houston home that same year.

Georgia · United States