Skinner

Eb and Mamie Skinner came to 369 North Peachtree Street in the early 20th century, building one of the distinctive houses that contribute to the vintage feel of our town. 

Mamie Skinner’s father, George Hoyle Jones (1833-1915) had a farm along the Chattahoochee River in the area where Jones Bridge Park is located today. He served as a Confederate cavalry officer and scout during the Civil War, and later was in the Georgia state legislature and was Principal Keeper of the State Penitentiary for several years. His daughter Mary Helena (“Mamie”) was born in 1872.

Richard Ebenezer (“Eb”) Skinner’s father, Franklin Skinner, moved from New England to Milledgeville GA around 1846, where he became the superintendent of a large textile mill. Eb attended Georgia Military College there, and became a merchant. He and his bride Mamie moved to Gwinnett after their wedding on Nov. 25 1891 and purchased the property on North Peachtree in 1905. For many years he traveled around Georgia as a sales representative for buggy manufacturers, including the Delker Brothers Carriage Company, of Henderson KY. He died in 1922.

The Skinners had three children. Daughter Hoyle graduated from Georgia Normal and Industrial College in Milledgeville, where she was president of the 1912 senior class, and worked for several years for the State of Georgia in their Farm Extension program. Her duties included visiting farm families to teach them about canning food and raising chickens, and speaking to civic groups such as the Augusta Woman’s Club, where she gave a talk in 1917 entitled “The Woman’s Part in Food Conservation”. She married in 1918 and lived in Charlotte NC and Atlanta for many years.

Son Frank Skinner joined the United States Army during World War I and served at Fort Bliss in Texas for over 20 years. Daughter Mary Virginia Skinner was a school teacher in the Atlanta area, and married Colonel Clifford Jones of Norcross in 1954, following the untimely death of his wife Estelle. Mamie Skinner sold her property in Norcross in 1939 and passed away in 1964.