Captain John L. Day House

John Loquier Day was born in New York City on April 22, 1838. His parents, Henry G. and Mary A. Day, came to America in 1831 from Bristol, England. The couple had nine kids, but two died in infancy. John began working at the age of 15, serving alongside his father in three branches of the mechanical industry: millwrighting, shop work, and pattern making. When he was 22, he became employed by the government as a journeyman, which exempted him from military service. At the age of 24, John began working on his own as a machinist.

Both of John’s parents died relatively young. Mary Day died of yellow fever in 1854 at the age of 43. Henry Day became the manager of a line of steamboats for the Georgia company. In 1858, during a trip from Augusta to Savannah, his vessel caught fire on the Savannah River. According to an 1859 article in The Delaware Gazette, 780 bales of cotton, 40 barrels of flour, and other produce were destroyed in the fire. The passengers and crew were forced to abandon the ship and jump overboard. Unable to swim, Henry Day was one of twelve to fifteen passengers that drowned.

In 1860, 22-year-old John L. Day married Mary R. Strobar, daughter of Francis and Martha A. (Beasley) Strobar of Savannah. John and Mary had four children. Sadly, one son, John P., died in infancy, and their eldest son, Harry G., died in 1884 at the age of 17 after battling a long illness.

In 1867, John L. Day changed careers and began steamboating. For the next twelve years, Captain John Day operated three steamboats that traveled on the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers in connection with railroading lines. He built his own boats and named them after his children.

In 1869, tragedy once again struck the Day family. John’s brother Henry, who he had not seen for 10 years, boarded a train from Richmond headed to Augusta. While on the train, he fell ill, and 10 minutes after reaching his brother in Augusta fell unconscious and within four days died of brain fever at the age of 27.

Years later, in 1890, the river claimed another member of the Day family when one of John’s siblings, steamboat captain Thomas G. Day, drowned after his boat crashed while navigating down the river.

Sometime between 1880-1885, Captain John Loquier Day built this striking Italianate brick home in Lumber City. It is said to be the first brick house ever built in Telfair County, though that has not been confirmed. The cast iron fence, porch rails, and columns were meant to replicate the rails of a steamboat, and considering John Day’s machinist background, he may have even designed them himself.

Captain John Loquier Day died on March 9, 1906, at the age of 67. He is buried along with other members of the Day family in Laurel Grove Cemetery North in Savannah.

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