Stephen Spruill was born in Dunwoody in 1870 and grew up in a log cabin behind his grandfather’s house on Spruill Road. Today, that road is Ashford Dunwoody Road.
One of his chores as a child was to gather pine knots to help light the cabin. He remembered that his grandfather once paid him $1 to drive an “unruly” calf to cattle market in Atlanta.
The first school Spruill attended was a one-room log cabin, located where Spruill Center for the Arts and the Dunwoody Library are today. His teacher, Mattie Graham, lived with his grandparents.
“We walked to school through the woods, carrying our lunch pails containing such things as a baked sweet potato, sausage and a biscuit, and fried apple pies,” he recalled. (“The Story of Dunwoody,” by Elizabeth L. Davis and Ethel W. Spruill)
In 1903, a group of men decided it was time to build a Methodist church in Dunwoody. The group included Stephen T. Spruill, Henry Spruill, J.C. Spruill and John Cates. They met at Cephas Spruill’s blacksmith shop. Church members first met in 1899 at Dunwoody School. Lumber for the church came from the sawmill on Stephen Spruill’s land and from the sawmill of John Wallace in Chamblee. (“The Story of Dunwoody United Methodist Church, 1899 to 1963,” Mrs. D.C. Waybright, Jr.)
Spruill’s parents and grandparents were active in Sandy Springs Methodist Church, so the family vacation each year was a week at Camp Meeting. They packed up and stayed in Sandy Springs for religious meetings, singing and spending time to visit with neighbors.
Stephen Spruill married Mollie Lee Carter of Sandy Springs in 1889, and they had 11 children. After her death in 1932, he married Ethel Warren of Sugar Valley, Georgia.
In addition to cotton and vegetables grown on the farm, there was a 50-acre orchard of apples and peaches. Produce was sent daily to Atlanta by mule-drawn…
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