This cannon actually belonged to my family.

I'm a descendant of John Gilleland who built it and I even grew up on Gilleland drive in Athens, GA until I was 10 years old.

The "house" was a run down shack built in the 1920's that was adjacent to the family graveyard which has since been bulldozed... The house, not the graveyard. If you go the graveyard today (difficult to find because the new houses block the view), the large family headstone actually says "Sims" on it, because the family patriarch was a privateer for the English crown who settled in GA.

When I attended UGA and was out bar hopping with buddies I would sometimes walk up to the cannon and tell them it was mine.