The architecturally distinguished Harris-Pearson-Walker House was the first house built in the Village of Harrisburg near Augusta and the residence of its founder, Ezekiel Harris, from 1797 until about 1807. The Pearson-Walker family then owned the home from 1809 until 1873. When the house was built, tobacco was the primary cash crop in Georgia. Liberal land grants and rich soil attracted tobacco planters who had depleted their farmlands farther north. Towns sprang up around the tobacco inspection stations and warehouses. Ezekiel Harris came to this area of Georgia from Edgefield County, South Carolina, to establish his own tobacco warehouse. In 1794, Harris bought 323 half acres of the White House Tract and built his home in 1797. On the rest of the land, he laid out a village he named after himself - Harrisburg. He hoped that this new village would rival Augusta in the tobacco trade. - NPS