Glascock - Bealle - Foster House, 1109 21st Avenue
Houses and homes
Built in 1844 for John Glascock from Virginia, the home is of French Gothic design with distinctive Gothic windows. Glascock was a leading merchant and citizen of Tuscaloosa prior to the Civil War. Six bracketed posts of wood support the roof of the porch. The edge of the roof has three French Gothic gables - one at the entrance and one for each wing. The home is trimmed with "tear drop" mill work across the entire front. There are four two-sashed, nine-paned windows across the front of the house with a door leading from each wing onto the front porch. On the front of these wings are two double windows, twelve panes each, under Gothic points. Higher in the gable over these windows is a painted, louvered Gothic window. The front door, which has a square transom with eight panes, opens into a hall which separates two rooms on each side and opens into a large room at the back.
(Description from "Past Horizons," Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, 1978)
According to a 2001 Tuscaloosa News article, Kentucky Senator Henry Clay is believed to have stayed in the home several times, and most of the home's features, from the wood floors to the mantels, have been unchanged since their construction in the early 19th century. Years of neglect had taken their toll on the 2,500-square-foot home and it was placed on the Alabama Historical Commission's "Places in Peril" list.
Louise Lawrence Foster, who inherited the house from her mother, Ruth Kirkpatrick, in 1988, said Glascock began the house in 1825 by constructing a two-room cottage on the property. As his dry-goods store became more successful, Glascock added to the house, its newest section was added in the 1840s. The house was used for Foster's Bookshop during the 1930s and 1940s, it was rented to Frank Boykin in 1956, who used it to house his antiques business. The Boykin family ceased renting the house in 1999, and the empty house became a target for vandals. Foster was looking to sell the house in 2001.
The house has since been removed from the endangered list and, in 2013, is home to businesses.
The house is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Betty Slowe
Betty Slowe
September 17, 2013
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
1055
Tuscaloosa (AL)
William Henry Jemison House, 1005 17th Avenue
Houses and Homes
This house was built about 1840 by William Henry Jemison, the younger brother of Senator Robert Jemison. It is also called the Jemison-Brandon-Waugh House.
This was the first house in Tuscaloosa which departed from the prevalent "Greek Revival" building style. Building details such as bay windows, wall dormers, steeply pitched gables with decorative sawn wood barge boards and quatrefoil patterned iron balcony railings were radical departures from the prevailing style.
Just as William Henry Jemison's house was different from most of those around him, so was his life filled with variety . He was a planter, captain in the Confederate army, member of the Alabama House of Representatives, a teacher of agriculture at Auburn and quartermaster at the University of Alabama 1873-82.
Of the nine children born to him and his wife, Elizabeth Ann Patrick, two had an important impact on Tuscaloosa. William Carlos Jemison was editor of the "Tuscaloosa Times" and mayor of Tuscaloosa for six years, in which time he inaugurated the system of graded public schools.
Another son, Robert IV, affected Tuscaloosa by what he didn't do here but did for another. He left Tuscaloosa after a public meeting in which he pleaded with the city fathers and citizens of our city to band together to promote and finance plans to make Tuscaloosa one of the largest industrial cities in the south. The people were satisfied with the status quo. They rejected the proposal and Jemison moved to the then small village of Birmingham where he and a few other farsighted men built it into the bustling "Magic City."
After the Civil War, William Henry Jemison sold his Gothic home to General Sterling Alexander Martin Wood. The General named the house and grounds "Woodlawn" because the property stretched from 10th to 11th Street and 16th Avenue to Queen City Avenue. A larger tree-lined drive led from Queen City Avenue to the house.
Shortly after the turn of the century, "Woodlawn" was bought by Harry Z. Smith for his wife, Mary Oliver, and their seven children. Smith had previously been in charge of sales for the American Thread Company and in this capacity had to travel constantly. Wishing to stay closer to home, he moved to Tuscaloosa and bought the Tuscaloosa Heading Mill, located near the A.G.S. Railroad station. This company manufactured the tops or "heads" for wooden barrels from pine cut from their own extensive forest lands at "Smith's Spur" near Duncanville.
Mr. Smith died in 1913 after being pinned beneath a wagon which was tipped over by an unruly rearing horse. After his death, the Smiths moved to a house on University Boulevard. The Kappa Alpha fraternity occupied "Woodlawn."
The most prominent occupant of "Woodlawn" was Tuscaloosa's own Gov. W. W. Brandon. He bought the house after he married Ms. Elizabeth Andrews Nabors, a widow with two children. These step-daughters are best remembered in Tuscaloosa as Mrs. James F. Alston and Mrs. A.L. Tyson.
William Woodward Brandon's political and judicial career first began in 1891 when he was elected clerk of the city of Tuscaloosa and a Justice of the Peace. He was also state legislator, state auditor and Probate Judge of Tuscaloosa County for 21 years. His military career was just as illustrious. He was a captain of the Warrior Guards, a major in the Spanish-American War and adjutant-general of Alabama from 1899 to 1901.
He was known throughout Alabama as "Plain Bill" and a friend of all the people when he ran for and was elected governor in 1923. To reinforce this image, his inauguration parade was led by the old grey mule which he had driven as a conductor on the Tuscaloosa Street Railway Company, later called the "Dummy Line" when it was converted to steam. His term as governor was known for its financial economy of operation, the establishment of the state docks at Mobile, and for the first law school in the state and one of the first in the nation to provide for old age assistance other than alms houses.
During the last of a warm political campaign in 1928, he experienced a paralytic stroke which weakened him and caused a permanent lameness. Despite this handicap he continued as probate judge, Sunday School superintendent and chairman of the Board of Stewarts of the Methodist church until his death on Dec. 7, 1933.
(Adapted from "Home Shows Grand Style" by Marie Ball, Tuscaloosa News, Dec. 7, 1980)
Betty Slowe
Betty Slowe
Sept. 24, 2013
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
1076
Tuscaloosa (AL)
Owen-Free House, 1817 3rd Street
Houses and Homes
This house, part of a home built circa 1826 by one of Tuscaloosa's first doctors and a Methodist minister, was purchased by the late Dr. John Gallalee, longtime University faculty member and president of the University of Alabama in 1940. The 1820's portion of the house consisted of two rooms and a hall downstairs and one room on the second floor. The original portion of the house is built with four-by-four studs resting on 12- by 12-foot sills. The beaded clapboard exterior is rarely found in Tuscaloosa and indicates the quality of construction that went into the old Owen house. The "gingerbread" that was installed on the porch now forms part of the "interior pergola" of the bar at the University Club. ( Past Horizons, Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, 1978)
Betty Slowe
Betty Slowe
Sept. 24, 2013
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
1977
Tuscaloosa (AL)
Ormond-Little House, 325 Queen City Avenue
Houses and Homes
This Federal style home with its red brick exterior was built by Judge J.J. Ormond in 1835 with bricks shipped from England. The small portico has Ionic columns rising to the second floor, Earlier a balustrade outlined the roof top of the front porch onto which the door from the upper hall opened. The balustrade was lost, but has been replaced.
The home was built with hand-hewn heart pine floors and has a hall running perpendicular into a cross hall, two handsome stairways, marble mantles, silver door knobs and plastered molding.
The house is one of several fine examples of the Federal style of architecture in Tuscaloosa. (Past Horizons, Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, 1978)
See http://www.silverlininghouse.com/ to see an HGTV "If Walls Could Talk" episode on this house.
Betty Slowe
Betty Slowe
Sept. 24, 2013
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
1078
Tuscaloosa (AL)
McQueen-Ray House, 1810 4th Street
Houses and homes
This 12-room English Tudor style house is constructed of wood and masonry with rock trim. Restored by Mr. and Mrs. Martin Ray, the structure now contains an enlarged kitchen and redesigned bathrooms. The third floor of the house is a large room with plaster walls and a unique wood floor. The room, with a sky light added, was used as an artist's studio by Mrs. Ray. (Past Horizons, Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, 1978)
Betty Slowe
Betty Slowe
Sept. 24, 2013
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
1079
Tuscaloosa (AL)
Jones House, 1804 4th Street
Houses and homes
The Jones Home, originally a two-story structure with no porch, was built by Dr. John Owen, a Methodist minister and former mayor of Tuscaloosa (early 1830's), for his daughter Sarah Frances Owen. Miss Owen married Thomas Jefferson Burke, an early Tuscaloosa newspaper editor.
Although a disastrous fire destroyed the second story and did extensive damage to the structure, the beautiful paneled doors and woodwork of the original house remain. Devane K. Jones, a local attorney, acquired the property and home in the 1880's. (Past Horizons, Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, 1978)
Betty Slowe
Betty Slowe
Sept. 24, 2013
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
1080
Tuscaloosa (AL)
Leach-Redel House, 1927 7th Street, circa 2013
Houses and homes
Architects
Straiton, J.
The Leach-Redel House was built in 1904 by Dr. Sydney Leach and his wife Naneita McEachin Leach, possibly to plans by architect J. Straiton of Greensboro, Ala., who had designed a house for Mrs. Leach's sister, Eudora Otts, several years prior.
This structure features the bay room on the street front and has entrances on both street and avenue fronts. The original front porch wrapped the northwest corner and the front door was later swapped with an adjacent window from the projecting bay.
The house is a one-story frame dwelling with a wrap-around porch abutting the front bay. The roof of the porches are supported by seven, round, Ionic wood pillars.
The house was restored by "Antique Monthly", and served as their national headquarters. ("Past Horizons", Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, 1978)
The Kettledrum Club, Tuscaloosa's oldest women's group, was organized in this house with Mrs. Leach as hostess.
Betty Slowe
Betty Slowe
Sept. 24, 2013
David Nelson (Description)
Photograph
1081
Tuscaloosa (AL)
Foster-Murfee-Caples House, 815 17th Avenue
Houses and homes
Located at 815 17th Ave., in the heart of Tuscaloosa’s Druid City Historic District, the house was built by Marmaduke Williams, a representative in the Alabama State of House of Representatives from 1821 to 1839. The house was a wedding gift from Marmaduke Williams to his daughter Agnes Payne Williams and her husband Hopson Owen.
This Greek Revival three-story house was built in 1838 by slave labor. The structure is rectangular with two end-interior chimneys on each side. The side and backs are weatherboard; the front is plastered.
There are four gables on the roof - one at the front, one on each side, and one in the back. The gables at the front and back have grille work and doors with six-paned square transoms and sidelights open onto the third floor.
Six Doric columns support the roof and a matching pilaster at each end of the porch rests against the corner wall.
The porch, as well as the brick foundation, has been cemented. The two banistered back porches, stretching across the first and second floors, have been removed. Otherwise, the exterior has not been greatly changed. Except on the third level, the wide-planked floors have been replaced with hardwood.
In 1861, Agnes and Hopson’s daughter, Laura, married James T. Murfee in the home’s front parlor. Murfee taught mathematics at The University of Alabama and led the student cadet corps into action when federal forces invaded Tuscaloosa in April 1865.
With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the University was militarized and the all-male student body became the Alabama Corps of Cadets, led by Murfee. When Croxton’s Raiders reached the University April 4, 1865, Murfee rallied his cadets on the front lawn of his home, now 815 17th Ave.
The plantation was sold in 1911 and open fields surrounding the home gave way to city streets and bungalows. Soon after, the house itself was subdivided into six apartments to provide housing for UA students.
In the 1960s, the house was owned by Jennie Caples. The house’s second floor balcony was a backdrop for a Playboy shoot in fall 1982. Playboy magazine came to Tuscaloosa looking for a genuine Southern belle to represent the University in the first “Girls of the SEC” issue.
("Past Horizons," Tuscaloosa Preservation Society, 1978; Crimson White 8/20/2013)
Betty Slowe
Betty Slowe
Sept. 24, 2013
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
1082
Tuscaloosa (AL)
McEachin-Little House, 709 Queen City Avenue, circa 2013
Houses and homes
The McEachin-Little House is a square two-story structure with center end chimney and hip roof. A hall separates four rooms downstairs and the second story has the same plan.
Originally, there were 16 bracketed posts of wood, with banisters between, across the porch. There were banisters at the top of the porch, also a banistered balcony hung above the porch. The kitchen was in the yard away from the house. This structure was at one time the home of Julia Tutwiler.
In 1919, when Richard Little bought the property, the banistered porch and balcony were removed. A portico with four Doric posts were added at the entrance and a porch was constructed on the north side of the house.
There are nine windows across the front of the house and eight of these are two-sashed and six-paned. The front door, under a French Gothic arch, has a square transom and side lights. The floors are wide planked. ("Past Horizons," Tuscaloosa Preservation Society, 1978)
Betty Slowe
Betty Slowe
Sept. 24, 2013
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
1083
Tuscaloosa (AL)
Dearing-Swaim House, 2111 14th Street
Houses and homes
This home, originally known as the Alexander B. Dearing Mansion, was built between 1831 and 1842 by Alexander Dearing, who made his fortune in slaves and cotton in Mississippi before moving to Tuscaloosa. Although Dearing owned a plantation in Columbus, Miss., he chose to live in Tuscaloosa for its educational opportunities.
With several daughters in the Dearing family, the house became a center of social activities. The Dearings furnished their home with appropriate and beautiful French furniture. Some of that furniture has been loaned for use at the Battle-Friedman House by descendants of the Dearing family.
Built with slave labor and an "educated slave" foreman, the structure is said to be the best example of Greek Temple-type (with columns around three sides) architecture remaining in Alabama. It has never had to be restored. The original sheet metal roof lasted about 125 years and was duplicated exactly when replaced. The house has marble mantles, silver door knobs, and plastered frescoes.
In 1864, the home was not burned by Federal troops because the lady of the house scrambled her last "setting" of turkey eggs and fed the tired, hungry youths in the group sent to burn her home. For her kindness, they thanked her and left her and her children untouched.
The house was at one time the home of Dr. W.S. Wyman, once president of the University of Alabama, and is the boyhood home of the late Congressman Walter Flowers. Dr. Wyman was the son-in-law of the builder and Congressman Flowers was the grandson of the last owner.
The building represents a period in the development of the South that is important to America's history. It was built while Tuscaloosa was the state capital and Tuscaloosa was the head of navigation of the Black Warrior River at the time.
The 2nd owner of the house was Major James A. Spence. Spence, a Scottish immigrant, and his wife bought the home from the Dearing family in 1888. The Spences' most notable contribution to the home was the extreme Victorinization.
In 1919, after the death of Major Spence, Samuel G. Swaim bought the house.
The home is now commonly known as the Dearing-Swaim House. Many of the Victorian features have been removed.
(The Graphic, May 15, 1969; "Past Horizons," The Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, 1978)
Betty Slowe
Betty Slowe
Jan. 17, 2014
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
1086
Tuscaloosa (AL)