Yellow River Post Office

Yellow River Post Office

3519 Five Forks Trickum Road SW, Lilburn

According to the National Register of Historic Places, “The Hudson-Nash property is significant as a mid-nineteenth century farm and commercial property.” The farmstead with several outbuildings and the general store/post office served as a communication center for the entire southern Gwinnett County area from as far as Grayson to Snellville and Centerville to the Yellow River area.

Several buildings have existed on the property, including the original two-story farmhouse, which currently sits directly across the road from the Post Office building. The architectural style of the Hudson farmhouse is Plantation Plain and represents the use of mortise and tenon construction. This structure, and others on the property, represents an example of traditional building techniques often passed down from one generation to the next. This technique is referred to as vernacular architecture.

Arriving in Gwinnett from South Carolina in 1839, Thomas P. Hudson, Sr. established a 562-acre plantation along the Yellow River. Together with his wife and ten children, they became an integral part of the local community. Hudson was one of three men appointed to lay out the road now known as Five Forks Trickum Road that runs from the DeKalb County line to Lawrenceville. Additionally, he operated a general store where people as far as Snellville and Grayson would come for supplies, became the first Postmaster at the Yellow River Post Office, was a surveyor for Gwinnett County from 1850 to 1855, and was elected as a State Representative for Gwinnett County for three terms. During his time in the Georgia General Assembly, Hudson served as a delegate to the convention in Milledgeville, which adopted the Ordinance of Secession in 1861 that led to the Civil War. Thomas Hudson is known to have constructed slave quarters in the 1850s and by 1860, he is known to have owned 13 slaves.

Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, the property was sold to Lewis Nash in 1876. Nash served as post master of the post office from 1866 to 1867 and represented Gwinnett County in the General Assembly from 1868 to 1870. Nash family members and other members of the community organized the Yellow River Baptist Church.

The farm was purchased by Lewis Nash’s cousin William Thomas Nash in 1880, and it remained in the family until 1996. William’s wife and eight children lived on this property with farmers who worked Nash’s land in exchange for sharing the crops produced as rent. The Nash family built a one-story frame house, blacksmith shop, barn, and other outbuildings. These buildings supported the variety of activities on a farm. Cooking, laundry, and gathering eggs were chores performed near the kitchen. Other duties such as tool repair and raising and tending animals took place in and around the barn. The land was further divided among the children who also built houses on the property. Subdividing the farm for the children to build on was a typical pattern of farmers over time.

For more information visit Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center webpage or call 770.904.3500.