Ethel Gertrude Warren Spruill used to tell the story of giving directions to the home she shared with husband Stephen Spruill on what is now Ashford Dunwoody Road. She told visitors to travel north on Peachtree Road past Oglethorpe University and then turn left. Their house was the was the first one drivers would see.
The couple married in 1933. The home was further south on Ashford Dunwoody Road at that time. It is hard to imagine these directions to the Spruill home with all of the development of today.
A chimney from a former tenant house used to stand along Ashford Dunwoody and was visible from I-285. That chimney was later relocated further north on Ashford Dunwoody and then more recently it was incorporated into the Ashford Dunwoody Starbucks.
Before there were Spruills in Dunwoody, there were Spruill settlers in what is now Sandy Springs. When the Spruill family first came to Georgia from South Carolina in the 1820’s, they settled between Long Island Creek and Mount Vernon Road in Sandy Springs.
Members of the Spruill family were instrumental in the founding of Sandy Springs Methodist Church. According to Lois Coogle’s “Sandy Springs Past Tense,” the community worshipped under a brush arbor near where Mount Vernon Highway and Heards Ferry Road come together until 1851. That was the year Wilson Spruill donated five acres for a church to be built, where Sandy Springs United Methodist Church stands today. The first trustees of the church included James Spruill and Stephen Spruill.
Around 1842, James Spruill and his wife Millie Adams moved to Dunwoody and had a son named Thomas. They built a log cabin and smokehouse on their property on Ashford Dunwoody Road. The smokehouse still stands today. The log cabin had to be torn down in 1905 due to termite infestation. Thomas and his wife raised their family in the log cabin and their son Stephen Spruill was born in 1870.
An addition was built on to the log house before the terminte infestation. That addition was not affected by termites and was expanded further. Four rooms and a hallway were added to the front of the home and Victorian trim was added later.
One of Stephen Spruill’s memories of growing up in Dunwoody was attending the one room Dunwoody Grammar School. School was only in session five months out of the year, because children were expected to help with planting and harvesting the crops as well as other chores around the farm. The Spruill family made an annual trip from Dunwoody to Sandy Springs to attend camp meeting right before harvest time. This was considered the family vacation.
Stephen Spruill married Mollie Carter in 1889 and they lived in the log cabin until 1905. They had eleven children, several of whom stayed in the Dunwoody area. Mollie passed away at the age of sixty and Stephen married Ethel Gertrude Warren of Sugar Valley, Georgia.
Stephen Spruill was a farmer and business man who grew cotton, corn, peaches and apples. He acquired land over the years and had several farms in De Kalb and Fulton County. At one time he had over 300 acres planted with cotton.
Just as the Spruill family was instrumental in starting Sandy Springs Methodist Church, Stephen Spruill was one of the men who decided in 1903 that it was time for a Methodist Church in Dunwoody. The church opened its doors in 1906. Building supplies and labor all came from the community, including lumber from Stephen Spruill.
Front row, left to right, Florence Warnock Spruill , Catherine Saxe, Ethel Warren Spruill. Back row, left to right, Gerry Spruill, Beth Saxe. This photo appeared in the Dunwoody Crier newspaper when the Spruill Gallery first opened.
Ethel Spruill and her daughter Onnie Mae Spruill left the home place, outbuildings and 5.4 acres to the Spruill Center for the Arts in 1991. Restorations totaling $250,000 were done. Today it is used for special events, arts exhibitions, and a Holiday Arts and Crafts Sale.