Obediah Copeland’s plantation and well was a popular place for travelers to stop in the mid nineteenth century, including Union soldiers in the area during July of 1864. Lee Eula Copeland Hembree, last family member to live there, shared stories passed down of Creek and Cherokee Native Americans, as well as early settlers and prospectors on their way to the north Georgia mountains stopping for a drink from the well. Sometimes the wagons would be lined up down the road.
The well on property when owned by Lee Eula Copeland Hembree.
Obediah Copeland was born in Gwinnett County in 1834. In 1854, he married Salina Cauley. The couple are listed in Milton County on the 1860 census with two children. He was working as a blacksmith. By 1880 the couple has six children. Their son John later operated a dairy along the border of Dunwoody and Sandy Springs, and their son Larkin ran a store in Dunwoody along Chamblee Dunwoody Road.
Obediah and Salina acquired 1,400 acres through the years. They had a general store and post office on their property. At the time, the property was part of the Grogans District of Milton County and the post office was known as Grogans. When Obediah died in 1894, most of his land was sold, but his son Robert Lee Copeland bought 50 acres to keep for himself, including the house and well. Robert Lee Copeland’s daughter Lee Eula Copeland Hembree would remain in the home her entire life, from 1910 until 1995.
Brad Phillips shared his memories of the old home and Lee Eula Copeland Hembree. His family moved into the area along today’s Roberts Drive north of Spalding Drive in 1971. Today the location of the Copeland well and home is where Dunwoody Springs Elementary sits. Although the property and homeplace became known as Obediah’s Plantation, like most Dunwoody and Sandy Springs farmers, the house was a plain, small farmhouse.
In the 1970’s, when Brad was riding the school bus to Mimosa Elementary School and later Woodland Elementary School, the bus passed the old home. Lee Eula Copeland Hembree lived there at the time with her husband. The couple would wave at the bus full of children from their front porch or from their garden. They had a local nursery business, growing shrubbery on the property.
Lee Eula Copeland Hembree shared the stories of her pioneer family in an early issue of the Dunwoody Crier (Dunwoody Crier, 1979, Dode Templeton). Another family story was that Salina’s hair turned gray when she believed her husband had died as a Confederate soldier. The war ended and he had not returned. Copeland had been taken prisoner of war on July 18, 1864; however, he surprised her by showing up suddenly sometime after the war ended. He had been held at Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois.
Obediah Copeland died in 1895 and is buried at Ebenezer Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery in Sandy Springs. Salina Copeland lived until 1930 and is buried next to Obediah at Ebenezer.
Copeland family members lived on the property for 183 years. Before the house and outbuildings were torn down, local historian and preservationist Lynne Byrd, documented the history and took several photographs. Two of the outbuildings were made entirely of stone, one of them a smokehouse.