Elias Benton Vickery

Elias Vickery was from Hart County, Georgia and attended North Georgia Agricultural College. The semester after he graduated, he was hired by the university where he taught as a Classics professor. He would go on to become department head, registrar, and dean. 

Once settled in Dahlonega he purchased 1.2 acres and a cottage in 1895 for $600.  The house had first been owned by an assayer at the US Branch Mint.  Shortly after he purchased the house, he married his wife, Etta, and they together made changes.  By 1908, he and his wife, Etta McMullan Vickery, had added an upstairs, stained glass windows, and an L-shaped porch to create a Late Folk Victorian home.

Vickery became a highly active community member, heading the local Masonic Lodge as well as successfully running for mayor in 1905.  

The Vickreys lived in their home until their deaths and today it is the headquarters of the Appalachian Studies department at the University of North Georgia. This house was the first building in Dahlonega to be placed on the National Historic Registry.  

Mr. Vickery died in 1929 of meningitis, agitated by an earache.