Gee’s Bend in St. Clair

Quilts and quilters have compelling stories to tell

Story by Joe Whitten
Photos by Susan Wall
Submitted Photos

Gee’s Bend quilts, vibrant and spontaneous, have been exhibited and written about around the world, but for Claudia Pettway Charley, born in Gee’s Bend and now living in Pell City, quilts have been an everyday fact of life.

She grew up nurtured by the women whose quilts would one day be showcased in museums across the globe. It was a legacy, an art learned from her mother, Tinnie Pettway; her grandmother, Malissia Pettway; her aunt, Minnie Pettway; and other quilters of the close-knit community.

Sewn by descendants of slaves from a plantation on the Alabama River, these quilts have made Gee’s Bend and the quilters internationally famous.

From The Times of London — “The women of Gee’s Bend … have shattered artistic boundaries. Their bold, vibrant designs are as radically different from orthodox quilt patterns as Picasso was from anyone who preceded him.”

From The New York Times —  “What makes this (Gee’s Bend) tradition so compelling is that unlike most quilts in the European-American tradition, which favor uniformity, harmony and precision, Gee’s Bend quilts include wild, improvisatory elements: broken patterns, high color contrasts, dissonance, asymmetry and syncopation. …”

Quilting originated in the Orient as padded garments, then made its way to Europe by way of returning 13th century crusaders, and eventually evolved into bedding.

Quilts came to the New World with the first settlers and were necessary in the home well into the 20th century.

In the second half of the 20th century, there burst upon both the quilting world and the art world the phenomena of Gee’s Bend quilts. In 2018 the Bend’s quilts again came to prominence through the official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama painted by Amy Sherald of Baltimore. Mrs. Obama’s portrait gown features quilt blocks associated with Gee’s Bend quilts. In 2018, Sherald visited Gee’s Bend quilters and had a grand time in Tinnie Pettway’s home hearing stories from the past told by Tinnie and her sister Minnie.

Gee’s Bend quilter and entrepreneur, Claudia Pettway Charley, is partner in the family-owned business and currently owns the registered trademark for that business, That’s Sew Gee’s Bend. In a recent interview at the Pell City Library, among an array of her quilts as well as her mother’s, she talked about her process of making a quilt. “Everything comes from the head and the heart — what the feeling is at that moment, that time when you put a piece together. No patterns, nothing like that.”

The fascination and beauty of a Gee’s Bend quilt is its spontaneity. Each quilt is a serendipity of seemingly haphazard colors and shapes that harmonize into a thing of beauty which sings to the observer’s soul.

A New York Times reporter wrote that the earliest Bend quilts “…came into being alongside gospel, blues, ragtime and jazz,” an era when strict rules of music composition were tossed aside. Think of trumpeter Louie Armstrong or pianist Thelonious Monk departing from the written notes and improvising his mood of the moment into improvisations.

Now look at a Gee’s Bend quilt and realize the placement of color, fabric texture and shape speak a language of mood or emotion, unhampered by strict adherence to geometrical pattern and form. The green-bordered Double Glory quilt by Tinnie Pettway (Claudia’s mother) is as lively as New Orleans jazz vibrating the night.

Claudia acknowledged her quilts to be both improvisational and abstract — each quilt “is true to itself,” she said.

When asked her thoughts when beginning a new quilt, Claudia replied: “It could be your mood at that particular time; the weather; how you are feeling. If you’re feeling excited and happy, you may choose a lot of bright (colors) for the piece — I’m speaking of myself now. You just kind of know the direction you want the piece to go. It’s not just one thing; it could be a multitude of things that would make you choose certain fabrics and colors.”

Tinnie Pettway’s thoughts on starting a quilt correspond with her daughter’s. “Fabric is not the problem,” she said. “My problem is the design — and I have no special design (in mind) when I’m making a quilt. I think of how I want it, and sometimes that don’t work out, and I just let that go. I take a portion of the quilt, and I lay it out on the floor, and I look at it. I turn it around, and whatever looks the best to me when I place it together, then that’s the way I sew it.” Her yellow-bordered Multi Block Crossroads quilt is a striking example of how successfully she works this technique.

The Bend quilters do have “traditional patterns,” Tinnie said; “…things like Grandma’s Dream, Nine Patch, String, or the one we call House Top — those are regular quilts that everybody makes. But I have no particular pattern. I just sew pieces together. If they look good, I sew the pieces together.

“And everybody who sees one (of our quilts) knows that that’s a Gee’s Bend quilt. It’s put together just as our mind tells us — most time with no set form and no set pattern. That’s how we do it.”

How did they get here from there?

To understand Gee’s Bend quilts, you need to answer the question, “How did Gee’s Bend quilts originate?” To answer that, you must know some of the history of this particular bend in the Alabama River. And to appreciate the abstract beauty of the quilts, you must understand the pervasive tension between despair and hope in their lives.

Joseph Gee, from North Carolina, settled in the Bend around 1816 and established a plantation in the rich, fertile river-bottom land. According to Harvey H. Jackson II in his Rivers of History: Life on the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Cahaba, and Alabama, Joseph died in 1824 and left the plantation and 47 slaves to his nephews still living in the east. One nephew, Charles Gee, moved to Alabama and ran the plantation until the 1840s. At that time, to settle a debt, Charles and his brother deeded everything to Mark H. Pettway. In 1846, Pettway and family with more than a hundred slaves made the journey through the Carolinas and Georgia and into what by then was called Gee’s Bend, Alabama.

Pettway brought change. Jackson writes, “… His slaves cleared more land, planted more cotton and built their master a ‘big house,’ which he named Sandy Hill. Gee’s Bend became, according to one student of the region (Nancy Callahan), ‘a dukedom in the vast Southern cotton empire,’ and there Pettway lived in splendid isolation. Deep in the heart of a bulb-shaped peninsula, almost entirely surrounded by the river, Mark Pettway was free to do whatever he wished, and he did.”

When emancipation freed the slaves, they all took the Pettway surname whether blood-related or not, and all stayed on the Pettway plantation, working as sharecroppers and tenant farmers. In 1895, Pettway sold the land to Adrian Sebastian Van De Graff, a Tuscaloosa attorney who ran the farm as an absentee landowner.

By the 1920s, Gee’s Bend was an isolated African-American community. Farmers sold their cotton to a merchant in Camden. The price of cotton dropped in the late 1920s, and without telling the farmers, the merchant held the cotton hoping the price would go up in a few years. All the while, he kept account of what they bought, to be paid for when the cotton sold.

The price of cotton did not go up before he died. His heirs saw only what the farmers owed — and the farmers’ held cotton had “disappeared.”

In 1932, the merchant’s heirs sent men to Gee’s Bend to collect. And collect they did, taking everything — household goods, cows, mules, pigs, seed for next-year’s planting. The pillaging left the people destitute.

Jackson quotes a Christian Century article by Rev. Renwick C. Kennedy, “In October and November, 68 families, 368 people, were ‘broken up’ or ‘closed out’ — Alabama phrases that described both a physical condition and a psychological state.”

The stricken people faced the winter with the real prospect of starvation. Jackson writes that they survived through the help of both the Red Cross and a compassionate Wilcox County plantation owner who provided assistance with cornmeal and food.

From this poverty came the quilters thrift of salvaging still usable portions of worn-out overalls and clothing to make cover to pile on beds for warmth in an unheated, cardboard-thin house. These quilts are documented in Gee’s Bend: The Women and their Quilts and The Quilts of Gee’s Bend.

Tinnie Pettway commented about this use of worn-out clothing, saying, “…In those old quilts, to have a different color…they would rip seams (of overalls), and where the seams had been folded, (it was) still holding its color. They’d sew it together.” This gave them shades of blue in the pieces.

She also told of the competition between the quilters. “They wanted to see which one could make the best quilt — even out of those ragged pieces they had. In spite of the lack of material, they used whatever they could find.” Tinnie and her sister, Minnie, made the quilt, Robust, of worn overall denim scraps. Note the splash of red in the lower right — a counterpoint of hope in a field of lonesome blue.

Claudia was asked, “Do you think any of the quilts reflected the distress of what the people were going through?”

She responded thoughtfully, “It’s possible. (When) you look at some of the old quilts and what they used for material — croaker sacks … overalls. … I think it was according to the attitude of the time, … using what they had available. They said to themselves, ‘We’re gonna survive regardless of what anyone says or what anyone does.’

“You know, growing up in the country like that, it makes you a survivor. Gee’s Bend was like a forgotten community — totally. So, we depended on each other. We depended on the farming, eating off the land, doing anything we could do at that time for survival. And it makes today seem simple.”

In Claudia’s quilt, Crimson Blues, she has created a sense of tension in the shapes and placement of red, blue and black pieces. The themes of despair and hope seem to throb through Gee’s Bend quilters’ blood and come to life in their quilts.

Drive for more than quilt-making

Not only was there a determination to survive physically, but there was also the struggle for basic citizen’s rights, such as the right to vote.

Tinnie Pettway remembers that well. “I went over to register to vote, and they put me in a little room in the courthouse. It just had one door. Finally, it got dark, and I looked up, and there was these three men standing right in the door looking at me. I just looked at them, and they backed out. I don’t know why they was looking at me, trying to frighten me or not. I don’t know. But they backed out, and finally I was able to register to vote. They sent me my card saying that I qualified.”

Claudia’s aunt, Minnie Pettway, recalled the same intimidation and that the officials threw away her first registration forms. “Threw them in the garbage!” But she kept trying. “A lot of people wouldn’t go. I guess they were somewhat afraid, but my daddy wasn’t afraid of nothing, so I just went along with him.” Finally, as a result of a court hearing in Selma, Minnie was a registered voter. “When we were declared registered voters, whenever there was an election, we went to the polls and voted.”

Tinnie, Minnie, and others from Gee’s Bend marched in Camden, the county seat for the right to vote. “Most of the people who was marching was not the educated people … many of them were afraid to march. They were afraid of their jobs — that they would lose their jobs,” Minnie remembered. “My daddy (Eddie Pettway Sr.), used to get truckloads of people and take them to Camden to register to vote, and they would put them all in jail. Then a day or two later, my daddy would go back with his truck and try to bond them out of jail. … Daddy went to get them, but they would go back a day or two later protesting again.”

Eddie Pettway Sr., who was Claudia’s grandfather, marched at Edmund Pettus Bridge with others from Gee’s Bend. “They ran over them with horses,” Minnie recalled, “and would spray them with tear gas. My daddy would drag the ladies out of the area where the tear gas was strong.”

The determination to keep on until rights were won seems to be sewn in Tinnie’s Gee’s Bend Geometric Trails quilt of multi-colored panels bordered by panels of red and gray — no curves in these trails, they lead straight ahead to the goal.

When asked if the young folk today realized the struggles of their grandparents, she replied, “They don’t, really. My grandkids, Claudia’s kids, they enjoy listening to the stories, but they just can’t imagine going through that.”

Not only could the younger generation not comprehend what the struggle had been, but neither could the crowds at the museums when Gee’s Bend quilters appeared at exhibits.

The women traveled from museum to museum for each exhibit of their “works of art” in galleries across the USA. “We would talk,” Tinnie remembered, “and tell the people how it was coming up in Gee’s Bend and the struggle we had here. … What we were telling (about our lives) was unimaginable (to them).

“When our bus would come in (to a museum), they’d be standing out like the president was coming. And they would just hug us, and some of ‘em were crying, and I thought, ‘My God, these are just quilts!’ … We had lived with these quilts a lifetime. They wasn’t art to us as (they were) to the people we were taking them to.

“It was almost unbelievable,” she remembered. “That’s when I had my first flight — to a museum in California. That’s the first time I got on a plane, and I’m telling you, that was something. I was kind of afraid when I got on there, but once that plane took off, I thought, ‘Well, I might as well settle down, cause I’m up here now, and they’re not gonna take me back.’”

She chuckled at the memory and continued. “It was joyous time. I had my first time to eat goat cheese on one of those trips. … A lot of those quilters didn’t like that goat cheese, but I liked that goat cheese, and I’d say, well give me your goat cheese!”

Claudia’s wish is that upcoming generations will find hope and success because of  the struggles of the past and that they will continue the quilting heritage of Gee’s Bend. “We don’t want it to become a dying art. We want to continue to keep the quilting in the forefront of not just artists but quilters and everyday people. We (quilters) have to find like-minded people to know where that place is, and from there it grows.”

She is hopeful that soon, innovative and spontaneous quilting will take root in Pell City and St. Clair County.

Remembrance of past, hope for future

In their interviews, both Claudia and her Mom talked about Gee’s Bend’s isolation, poverty, struggle for survival, and the progress that had been made by the community’s determination and resourcefulness.

“Things are much better now,” Tinnie said. “Education is much better. We’ve got some very good kids that have grown up here — doctors, lawyers, nurses — that came from Gee’s Bend in spite of its beginnings.”

The post-slavery trials and tribulations of our African-American citizens in Wilcox County’s Gee’s Bend, with its injustice and inhumanity, echo in all of Alabama’s counties. A little delving into St. Clair County’s 19th Century estate records expose that inhumanity. However, the subtlety of injustice lies in the fact that it may fall upon anyone, regardless of race, color or belief.

But like those brilliant colors splashing through Gee’s Bend quilts, hope brightens the future. And this must be a determined hope for all.

Tinnie expressed it this way in a poem:

I’m not giving up in this life
Although there may be some strife
It may be sometime I have to wait
I know it’s never too late.

From this life I won’t retire
To be productive is a lifelong desire
I’ll go on, no, I won’t die
A new lease of life I have acquired

I feel now I’m more blessed
And I truly know I fear less
I also know I have to press
I want what I want and won’t settle for less

I will achieve, I see my goals
I won’t stop, no I won’t fold
Through the wind storm, rain or cold
To my faith and His hand I’ll continue to hold.

In this poem, Determined, from her book, Gee’s Bend Experience, Tinnie expresses hope, faith and determination. And in her quilts and daughter Claudia’s quilts, the careful observer can hear those three harmonies swirling in a crescendo of cloth and color to proclaim to the world Hallelujah! Amen! l

Mt. Zion Baptist Church

Two churches, a single purpose

Story by Joe Whitten
Photos by Michael Callahan
Submitted photos

Mt. Zion Baptist Church, a church started by freed slaves in Springville, exists today because in 1816 a North Carolina minister grew discouraged in the ministry and resolved to abandon preaching. Leaving preaching and North Carolina behind, Rev. Sion Blythe moved his family to what would become St. Clair County, Alabama, and settled along Canoe Creek.

Published writings referred to Blythe as “the reluctant preacher.” Born in Tennessee in 1781 and ordained as a minister in North Carolina, Blythe organized and pastored churches in Buncombe County, North Carolina.

When Blythe and family left North Carolina and headed west, he instructed his wife to tell no one that he had preached. No written record states exactly why he had become so disheartened; however, his friend and Alabama Baptist historian, Hossa Holcombe, hinted that the problem was a theological difference with North Carolina pastors concerning man’s free will.

But Pastor Blythe’s free will choice to stop preaching was over-willed by his integrity when in late 1816 or early 1817, a woman in the area where he had settled asked him point blank if he were not a minister of the Gospel.

Blythe wouldn’t lie to her, and when he admitted that he had preached, Holcomb records, “The old lady leaped, and shouted, and praised God that she had found a preacher in the wilderness.” At her urging, Blythe agreed to organize a congregation, and on March 22, 1817, in the settlement called Big Springs, a Baptist church was established and named Mt. Zion. The name referencing verse in Hebrews 12:22, “Ye are come into Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem …” and reminding them of their goal, Heaven, the city of God.

Until the end of the Civil War, both slave and master worshiped together — but separate — at Mt. Zion, for as Margaret Windham records in her History of Springville the “…slaves had seats in the rear of the church building and, like their masters, were members of the church.”

One wonders about the names of those slave members, but we have scant information. The oldest minutes of Mt. Zion fell victim to fire when the home where they were kept burned. Because Martha Terry Roberts had copied portions of the old minutes that mention slave names, we have some, as quoted here:

  • April Term, 1821—Received Brother James, a black man, by letter.
  • May Term, 1823—Received by experience, Littie, a black woman, and Lisha More and also Pike.
  • August Term, 1823—Received by experience, Sook, a black woman.
  • June Term, 1831—A charge against Fanny, a black sister, for having two living husbands. Case taken up and Fanny restored to her seat as usual.
  • October, 1844—Sister Jane, Nancy, Elizabeth, and Margaret (blacks) dismissed by letter.
  • September, 1854—James Thomason called for a letter of dismissal, and for four of his blacks: Alfred, Clark, Doctor, and Reny. Granted.

Sister Fanny’s case in June, 1831, is of special interest. This writer became acquainted with slave wedding vows several years ago when touring Rose Hill Mansion near Hilton Head, South Carolina. The guide, a descendant of the builder of Rose Hill, told that slave wedding vows had these words, “Till death or distance do us part”—meaning that if one partner in the marriage were sold, the wedding vows were dissolved. Ordained ministers rarely performed slave weddings, which were never legally binding, and he couldn’t have them say “Till death do us part,” due to their circumstances.

Usually a slave couple wanting to marry might have a ceremony in the slave quarters, but most often, the couple would simply “Jump over the broom,” and they were married. An online article published by the Caswell County, North Carolina, Historical Society discusses the jumping over the broom and also white ministers’ use of “Till death or distance do us part” in Antebellum slave weddings.

The fact that in the same June meeting Fanny was restored to her seat in the church fellowship makes this writer believe that this was Sister Fanny’s reason for having two living husbands and the church sympathized with her.

The expression “received by experience” means the candidate for membership had recently come to an experience of salvation. To be dismissed by letter means to be dismissed in good standing to another church.

From those minutes we learn the first names of several slaves and the name of one of the slave owners, James Thomason. Although it is meager, these nuggets of information can assist slave descendants in genealogical research.

 

Changing times

In time, some stout-hearted people of the United States began to take note of the injustice of slavery, and a distant rumble began to arise, like far-away thunder forewarning an approaching storm. The rumble grew until in 1861, it roared into a storm of civil war, which by 1865 had wreaked ruin on much of the nation and unshackled slaves and set them free.

But being declared free and grasping the reality of freedom are two concepts not comprehended quickly. Former slaves, now free to congregate and worship together, continued to meet with Mt. Zion until 1868.

According to oral history, in 1868 the freed slaves of Springville began meeting on their own to worship God. No written record seems to exist for this group of believers prior to 1883, the year they joined Wills Creek Baptist Association in Etowah County.

For white Mt. Zion, the war years took its toll on church membership through battlefield casualties and through the emancipation of slaves. Mrs. Windom records that by 1870 the membership of Mt. Zion had dwindled to 70. That congregation decided to construct a more modern sanctuary that might encourage more people to worship with them. They began meeting in the new building in 1871. In that same year, Mt. Zion changed its name to Springville Baptist. With a new building, it probably seemed to them a good idea to identify the church with Springville.

Oral history doesn’t record just when the freed slaves began calling their group Mt. Zion. However, in their History of Springville, Alabama, Donna Cole and Virginia Taylor wrote, “After the war, the Black congregation left to form their own church and they kept the original Mt. Zion name.” It’s possible that two Mt. Zion Baptist Churches existed for a while in Springville.

The name became official in 1883. The Tenth Annual Session of the Wills Creek Baptist Association met at the Ashville Mt. Zion Church in August 1883, and the minutes record: “Received Mt. Zion Baptist Church of Springville, on the AGSRR [Alabama Great Southern Rail Road], as a newly constituted church — delegates, Elder L.C. Thornton, R. Pruet. Sent for missions, 50 cents; minutes, $1.00.”

Other Wills Creek Association minutes give more Mt. Zion facts:

  • 1888, meeting at the Cedar Bluff , R.H. Vogal, Pastor; Emma Galbreth, Clerk; and 71 members.
  • 1892, meeting at Mt. Zion, Ashville, J.H. Kerley, Pastor; J.H. Hudson, Clerk.
  • 1896, meeting at Lebanon Baptist, C.C. Curry, Pastor; F. Thaxton, Clerk, and 45 members.
  • 1897, meeting at Mt. Zion, Springville, C.C. Curry, Pastor; L. Byers, Clerk; 53 members.

Building a church

The first church building was constructed on the same property where the Mt. Zion church stands today. We don’t know the date of that construction, but the minutes of 1896 report the value of Mt. Zion’s church property as $1,000. That value in 1896 probably included a building.

Deacon Mitchell Hammonds recalled the church building, for he attended there as he grew up. “The church, when I was born, was a wooden building. It had two bell towers. It had a bell in one. It had two front doors and had three rows of pews. That old building had, of course, the big pot-belly heater.” That church was taken down and replaced with the present structure around 1976.

On sun-lit days, light streaming through the “Life of Christ” stained-glass windows bejewels the sanctuary. The vintage stained-glass cross window gracing the front of the church was donated to Mt. Zion by First Baptist Church of Springville.

Estell Long, who was born in 1936 and grew up in the church, fondly remembers the bell ringing. “You had a rope up there. … Will Woods would go early Sunday morning and pull the rope and the bell would tone.”

She recalled that during revivals the seats at the front of the church were reserved for those who wanted to be baptized and join the church. At the end of the week, the church would have a baptism at Lee Laster’s Creek. Mitchell Hammonds recalled that he was baptized in the Cahaba in Trussville. Later, the church was able to build an outside baptistry on site.

Mrs. Long reminisced about the singing in the church. “They had people in the choir, and they sang the old-fashioned songs. Mattie Kelly was the pianist. She would play the piano, and they would sing. When she finished, she would always shout. She was one of the shouting sisters in church.” Another pianist was Mattie Jo Williams Herring.

Some of the choir members Mrs. Long remembered are Sarah Frances Newsome, Velma Eleanor Newsome, Casey Lewis, Elizabeth Shepherd, Ruth Pulliam, Katherine Newsome, Margaret Hammonds Woods, Leola Pulliam Herring, Josephine Pulliam Herring and Nellie Mae Newsome Boyd.

Nellie Mae Newsome Boyd also served as a missionary to other churches in the surrounding area — Attalla, Ashville and Branchville. She would take reports from church to church so they could know the work of sister churches in the region. On these visits, she could share needs from the churches in her circle of ministry.

The young people of the church weren’t neglected. In the 1940s and 50s, Mary Bradford instructed the youths of Mt. Zion in the Baptist Young People’s Union – BYPU. Part of her teaching was having them memorize different Scripture passages, such as the Twenty-third Psalm. She assigned the passage at one meeting, and at the next meeting she expected each one to quote the passage from memory. Miss Bradford made sure each had memorized the Scripture.

Harvey Lovell Newsome served as Sunday School Superintendent in the 1940s and 1950s, and after Mr. Newsome, Sammy Kelly served as Superintendent.

Mrs. Long and Mr. Hammonds recalled the following men who served Mt. Zion as deacons: Sammy Kelly, Henry Beaman, Brook Toles, Bob Woody, Milton Herring and Willie LaShore.

 

Present day Mt. Zion

At present, active deacons are Mitchell Hammond, Henry Wright and Willie Jones Sr. These deacons minister to the church and community. One way is the Brotherhood Breakfast that meets on the first Saturday of each month. This interracial meeting begins with fellowship and breakfast. Henry Wright is credited with organizing this monthly event, with the purpose of encouraging each other in Christian faith, the preferred devotional topic for each speaker is “Why are you a Christian and what is in it for you?”

Yearly events at Mt. Zion include the National Day of Prayer, summer revivals and Youth Month in June, which includes a youth revival. Each February, the young people learn of African-American history on Wednesday nights. A favorite summer event has been the church trip to Lake Winnepesaukah in Chattanooga for a day of fun and relaxation.

 

Pastoring Mt. Zion

Mt. Zion has an incomplete list of former pastors. A careful research of the Wills Creek Baptist Association’s minutes could perhaps furnish a complete listing. Nineteenth Century pastors include L.C. Thornton, 1883; R.H. Vogal, 1888; J.H. Kerley, 1892; and G.W. Burton, 1896-1897. The church also has names of 15 pastors since 1901. Pastors since1937 include W.R. Simpson; T.C. Williams; I.H. Henderson; Joseph Jackson; and currently, Larry Adams.

Adams has pastored Mt. Zion since 2011. During his seven years shepherding the flock, he has seen spiritual growth in his congregation. His preaching emphasis is the whole Word of God, preaching it in context. He recently said, “We don’t skip anything. Even in our Bible study, we go verse by verse.” Pastor Adams, a bi-vocational pastor, is sometimes out for a Wednesday evening Bible study. Therefore, he makes sure he and the one teaching for him are together. “Right now,” he said, “we’re studying the book of Hebrews on Wednesday night. And if some of my other ministers are doing the teaching, I give them an outline of what we’re teaching, and we follow that outline. We have everybody together. They ask questions, and I get excited about teaching the Bible. And I say, ‘We’re gonna teach the whole Bible,’ and I have.”

Pastor Adams gets enthusiastic telling about the church and its ministries. The Children’s Church involves a wide range of ages — first-grade through 12th. The older group mentors the younger ones as a part of the Youth Ministry.

The church’s music ministry consists of Men’s Choir, Women’s Choir and Youth Choir. The Mass Choir combines the Men’s Choir and the Women’s Choir together for a service. The organ, keyboard and drums accompany the singing.

 

History within history

A current need for the church is a larger building with classrooms and a fellowship hall. The congregation has discussed this need and is working toward the goal. One discussion point is whether to build where the church now stands or to build on the church-owned lot diagonally across the street from the present structure.

Mt. Zion purchased the 1920s-era Springville Colored Elementary School building from the St. Clair County Board of Education after integration closed the school. They have renovated the building located next to the church and use it as their fellowship hall.

Springville Colored Elementary School was a two-room, two-teacher school with grades one, two and three in one room, and grades four, five and six in the other. Mrs. Long remembered her teachers in the 1940s as being Miss Mary Reid the first three years, and Zora Quinn the last three years. Mr. Hammonds recalled names of other teachers: Pauline Hudson, Alberta Williams, Sarah McCray and Rosey Dial (Pauline Hudson’s sister).

Students desiring high school education had to go to the Ashville Colored High School, which was later named Reuben Yancey High School. By the time Mrs. Long was in the seventh-grade, a bus transported students from Springville to Ashville. However, they were required to meet the bus at a store located near today’s Dollar General. The students living in the Flat Woods, or Jones Village, had to walk up to Highway 11 to meet the bus.

Before the St. Clair County Board of Education provided transportation, the only African-American students who attended high school were those who could afford to ride the Greyhound Bus to and from Ashville. Mrs. Long said Claudie C. Woody and William Hammonds were the only two students who earned high school diplomas before transportaton was provided free to students.

Mr. Hammonds recalls fondly his teachers and their instruction at Springville Colored Elementary School. “Our teachers always encouraged us to be the best that we could. They encouraged us to reach high and to hold high standards.” He quietly reflected a moment on integration, then, added that in the old school, the teachers “… tried to instill values in us. You know, be the best that you could be. They wouldn’t accept less.”

So, the old 1920s school building serves an interracial church — a church outgrowing its current facilities and looking to the future.

Pastor Adams is excited that Mt. Zion Baptist Church and First Baptist Church are doing things together. Pastor Chipley McQueen Thornton and Pastor Larry Adams became friends early on and have worked together in the community. The two churches have a combined service and fellowship meal once a year at First Baptist. This year, an additional Thanksgiving combined service is planned for November 25, with lunch to follow. Both congregations look forward to these joint services.

The two pastors are together on missions. Pastor Thornton has twice taught theology to local pastors in Africa. In February 2019, the African pastors will meet in Paris, France, and Thornton has asked Pastor Adams to go with him to do some of the teaching. Pastor Adams recently said, “Pastor Chip asked me, ‘You got your passport?’ And I said, ‘I got it! I’m ready!’ He and I are going over what we’re going to teach to be sure we’re on the same page. Chip is a tremendous teacher.”

When asked for a comment about Pastor Adams, Pastor Thornton replied, “I shook his hand and sensed I was in the presence of a genuinely spiritual man, a man of God. He carries that aura. After hearing him so eloquently expound the Scripture, I thought, ‘Ah! Here is another Apollos (Acts 18:24)! We must go train others to do the same.’ I eagerly invited him to go with me to teach pastors. He eagerly accepted, praise the Son! Now off to Paris we go, trusting in the good will of God to guide us, come what may.”

 

Reaping rewards

The work that Sion Blythe began in Big Springs, Alabama, in 1817, flourishes today in two churches. Blythe never dreamed that the one church would become two when slaves gained freedom. But in God’s timing, a church of freed slaves formed, and today both First Baptist Church Springville and Mt. Zion trace their history to March 22, 1817.

Pastor Adams’ purpose for being a minister is to let people “know that God loves them and that Christ died for them.” And for his congregation, he desires they grow in understanding God’s Word as he shepherds them toward Zion, the City of God.

Folks familiar with long-ago church songs can hardly think of the name Mt. Zion without thinking of lines from Isaac Watts’ 1707 hymn:

We’re marching to Zion,
Beautiful, beautiful Zion,
We’re marching upward to Zion,
The beautiful City of God.

And if we listen closely, we may hear Sister Mattie Kelly’s shouts of “Glory! Hallelujah!” still echoing down the years.

 

Chandler Mountain

A pinnacle of St. Clair History

Story by Joe Whitten
Submitted photos

Rising to an elevation of approximately 1,315 feet in the northern part of St. Clair County, Chandler Mountain extends from the southwest to the northeast for about 10 miles.

Its average width is about two and a half miles with an area of about 25 square miles. The terrain is rugged with numerous outcroppings of rock.

According to Place Names in Alabama (The University of Alabama Press, 1999), by Virginia Foscue, the mountain got its name from Joel Chandler, “who brought his family to this area soon after the Creek Indians were removed in 1814.” He settled on Little Canoe Creek. The mountain behind his place provided good hunting, and hunters, who used a trail near his property to climb to the hunting ground, began calling the mountain Chandler’s Mountain. In time, the apostrophe “s” was dropped, and Chandler Mountain has been the name since.

Despite the rugged terrain, settlers arrived. The first, Cicero Johnson from northwest Georgia, entered land on Chandler Mountain in 1855. Historian Vivian Buffington Qualls records that others soon came with their families from Georgia and the Carolinas to join Johnson: Franklin Smith, Jake Lutes, John Bearden, W.V. McCay, John Hollingsworth, Boze Wood, Jake and Bob Robinson, John Hollingsworth and Levi Hutchens. Hezekiah McWaters came from Troy, Alabama. So, the area began to be settled and cultivated.

Darrell Hyatt tells a family story of his Robinson great grandfather, George, who as a boy learned to play the fiddle. During the Civil War, when Confederate troops had camped between today’s US 231 and the Beason House, George would entertain them by playing the fiddle. Years later, George married Susie, who played the banjo. Darrell shared a treasured photo of the couple—Susie holding her banjo; George, his fiddle.

An interesting feature of this Chandler Mountain lies in the water level. Water for family and livestock came from dug wells or creeks on the mountain and in the valley. According to written sources, mountain well-diggers struck water within 25 or 30 feet, whereas in the valley, wells sometimes went as much as 75 feet down before finding water. 

Lee Gilliland and Larry DeWeese, who grew up on the mountain, said that early on, wells were hand-dug and lined with rock, brick or wood. They also spoke of “punched wells.” A bit about 4 inches in diameter and attached to a long heavy tube was mounted on a truck. A motor pulled the tube high and then let it drop, pounding it into the earth. This process took up to two weeks before it reached the water source. The steady pounding could be heard for quite a distance.

Numerous springs bubble from the ground, but the water doesn’t flow far before sinking back into the earth. In 1949, D.O. Langston wrote his master’s degree thesis at Auburn University about Chandler Mountain. He stated that “Gulf Creek is the only stream that flows any distance, and its water disappears in dry seasons.”

Two roads give access to the mountain: Steele Gap on the east and Hyatt Gap on the west. Hyatt Gap is named for John M. Hyatt, who migrated from Heard County, Georgia, around 1875.

For his master’s thesis, Langston interviewed Hillard Hyatt, who gave an account of John Hyatt’s coming to Chandler. Hillard told that John, living in Georgia, fell in love with a young woman. Her parents objected to the courtship, so John came to his cousin, Hezakiah McWaters, on the mountain. After working for McWaters “for a year or so,” John bought “80 acres near the southwest end of the mountain.” Then, “…he went back home to Heard County, married his childhood sweetheart, and they came back home, bringing all they possessed on one small pony. They arrived with 20 cents in money.”  John’s 80 acres included what is today’s Horse Pens 40, an international tourist and recreational attraction because of its centuries-old rock formations. Its history includes an ancient Native American burial ground, a hideaway during the Civil War and for outlaw Rube Burrow. It was nationally known for bluegrass festivals with rising stars of the day like Lester Flatt, Bill Monroe, Charlie Daniels, Ricky Skaggs and Emmylou Harris. Today, it is home to world class bouldering, hosting the triple crown climbing championship.

Darrell Hyatt recounted that family lore named John Hyatt as the last person to be granted a homestead in Alabama and that John and wife arrived here with all they owned in a pillow case. Wikipedia says the park derived its name from the original deed when allocating the acreage: “the home 40, the farming 40, and the horse pens 40.”

 

Organization of schools and churches

According to Mrs. Qualls, the first school on Chandler was called Mt. Lebanon. The building was across the road from today’s Mt. Lebanon First Congregational Methodist Church. A note written in old minutes of the church states, “A building was near the site of Mt. Lebanon Church in the late 1880s and was used for school meetings.”

The Mt. Lebanon School was on the east end of Chandler. On the west end, around 1895, the McCay School was organized. Mrs. Qualls records that John Hyatt had recently built a new house and donated the logs from his old home for the school building on the McCay property. Langston states, “After this house was built, the school then alternated between the church located on the east end of the mountain and the school on the west end. The church being on the east end and the school on the west made it necessary to alternate between the two to keep peace and harmony. …” Then, in 1902, the school relocated to a new building on the Hollingsworth property.

The two schools eventually consolidated, and in time the school became the Chandler Mountain Junior High School, which flourished for many years. The students consistently made high scores on the yearly standardized tests. The county school system closed the school and today buses students to Steele and Ashville.

The date that Mt. Lebanon Church started worshiping together is not known, but they likely met in the Mt. Lebanon school building. It is known that the Mt. Lebanon First Congregational Methodist Church officially organized in July 1905 and that William Robinson, a Congregational minister, would come from Georgia to the mountain to visit his Robinson relatives. While on these visits, he conducted revival meetings, and one of these revival meetings culminated in the establishing of Mt. Lebanon Church. William Robinson served as the first pastor from 1905 to 1911.

The church purchased land on which to construct a building from Bent Engle. They paid $2 an acre for two acres. A penciled note in some old minutes record that Jeff Smith donated land for the cemetery.

From 1933 to 1936 the church had a woman pastor—Annie Struckmeyer Moats, an ordained minister in the Congregational Church. Annie’s husband was Alley Mathis Moats. Annie’s granddaughter, Barbara Robinson, is a current member of the church.

Mt. Lebanon celebrated its centennial in 2005, and as it has done for over a century, remains a vibrant contribution to Chandler Mountain.

Chandler Mountain Baptist Church through the Years—1910-2010, compiled by Ellis Lee Gilliland and Mary Gilliland, recounts that on Oct. 22, 1910, members of the Missionary Baptist Church met at Cross Roads, or as some called it, Pleasant Valley, in Greasy Cove District near Gallant, Alabama, and organized a missionary Baptist church. The organizing presbytery consisted of John Heptenstall, Colman Buckner, Mon Umphres, J.D. Vicars, J.B. Rodgers and H.H. Turley.

Minutes dated Nov. 6, 1910, give that name as Cross Roads Baptist Church, which indicates that was its first name. These minutes show the church elected John Heptenstall as minister and M.C. Rogers, son of Deacon J.B. Rogers, as church clerk.

Years passed, new buildings replaced outgrown ones, and in March 2001, the church named a committee to proceed with plans for building a new sanctuary with a basement fellowship hall and to obtain a loan for a stated amount. The committee completed its job, and worship services moved from the old 1948 building into the new. The first service in the new building occurred on Sept. 9, 2001. The church paid off the loan in 2011. They used the 1948 building as a youth facility.

Then in 2017, structural weakness in the trusses caused unsafe conditions in the new sanctuary, and the congregation had to meet in the old building again. Over the years, church members have been faithful and resilient in difficult times, and so has it been in this set-back. The repairs haven’t been completed yet, but the church is making progress and looking forward to being back into the 2001 sanctuary.

Chandler Mountain Baptist Church celebrated its centennial in 2010 and continues its 108-year legacy of a faithful church body that is a source of spiritual strength to the community.

 

Lumber and Sawmills

The Ashville Museum and Archives has photocopies of articles Kenneth Gilliland wrote of his family and the mountain. One tells of the logging industry of the 1920s. There were sections of timber that had never been cut over and contained “a large supply of virgin timber, mainly pine trees. The pines were tall and straight. We called them ‘Old Field’ pines. Many of the trees would yield 12” x 12” timbers, eighteen to twenty-four feet long.”

Kenneth’s and Lee’s daddy, Sylvester Gilliland, built a portable sawmill that he could move into a tract of timber and have it set up in a day or two. Kenneth wrote, “A gasoline automobile engine was used to power the mill. Daddy used an engine out of a 1927 Buick for many years. He equipped it with a gravity-fed carburetor system from a Model A Ford. He would saw 8 to 12 thousand board feet of lumber a day if all went well. … The trees were all cut down and cut into logs of the correct length by two-man crosscut saw” and the “… logs were snaked in by mules.”

In those days, men found work wherever they could — usually for $1 a day. Gilliland paid his workers $2.50 a day because “they were worth it.”

In an interview, Lee Gilliland commented that his dad could do anything he set his mind to. His brother, Kenneth, recorded one such endeavor — electrifying their home seven years before Alabama Power climbed the mountain with their electricity in 1939-40. He wrote: “…electricity came to the S.B. ‘Vester’ and Dora Gilliland family about 1932. Daddy installed two 32-volt D.C. Delco Light Plants. They were set on concrete slabs in the corner of the garage. These were a one-cylinder gasoline engine pulling a direct coupled D.C. generator. These engines would run on kerosene also. They would charge a bank of lead/acid batteries. Wire was run from the bank of batteries into the house. Mom’s first appliance was a 32 V.D.C. iron bought from Teague’s Hardware in Ashville.”

In a 1977 interview with Dale Short of The Birmingham News, Sylvester Gilliland said, “The first 5 dollars I ever got hold of after I was grown, I sat down with the Sears-Roebuck catalog and ordered me a book about automotive mechanics. Most folks around thought I was a little touched, because not only did we not have any sign of a car, but even if we had, we couldn’t have got it on or off the mountain, roads being like they were.”

Observing that Gilliland devoured the automotive book, then ordered a book about steam power, then one about hydraulics, and then one about radios, Short commented, “Now he can look back over half a century of keeping sawmills whirring, gins ginning, mowers cutting, and in later years, radios and televisions playing.”

It would be correct to say that Sylvester Gilliland was the right man at the right time for Chandler Mountain.

 

Peach paradise?

Many do not know that mountain farmers grew peaches and sold them commercially. A Mr. Sloat and a Mr. Bush came from Michigan and introduced peach orchards to Chandler Mountain. Just when they came and what their first names were seem unrecorded, but it can be surmised they arrived toward the end of the 19th century. Sloat and Bush convinced the farmers, and they planted several thousand trees.

Vivian Qualls writes that around 1907 W.L. Yeilding from Birmingham bought Sloat’s orchard. She quotes Yeilding’s son, Ency, “The farm included about 200 acres of land, one-half of which was in peach trees. … The original trees … were about 7,500. About three years later, he began to plant another orchard of between 3,000 and 3,500 trees.”

Mr. Langston wrote that the men built a stone packing shed near the railroad depot in Steele, and “the trees bore their first crop about 1900. The fruit was of a desirable kind and of very high quality. The packing house was ready. The crop, properly graded and packed, sold for a good price. The farmers were well pleased with their new adventure.”

Several years of good peaches selling for good prices followed. Then the bottom fell out of the market. Langston records that one farmer hauled 304 bushes of high quality peaches to Steele and returned home with $12.08. His crop brought about four cents a bushel.

Mrs. Qualls relates that the Yeildings built a canning plant so the peaches could be preserved and sold when prices went up again. For a few years the peaches were canned. However, Langston notes that when the average life of the first trees ran out, none of the farmers were willing to replant, and the peach industry dwindled out.

 

Tomatoes become king of mountain

Both Qualls and Langston record that Otis Hyatt, son of John Hyatt, raised the first crop of tomatoes marketed from Chandler Mountain. Over the years, Otis had learned farming from his father, John Hyatt.

John became a successful grower of garden produce. At some point, he raised enough to make it profitable to take the produce down the mountain to sell. Needing a more convenient road than Steele Gap, Mr. Hyatt built the road known today as Hyatt Gap.

Mr. Langston records that John built the road “single handed down the mountain to Greasy Cove.” Darrell Hyatt recently added that his great grandfather used a “team of oxen and a slip scrape” to build Hyatt Gap Road. The gap was paved in the 1970s.

In a 1940s interview with Mr. Langston, Otis gave 1926 as the first tomato year. He raised the crop, harvested it, packed the tomatoes in baskets and peddled them. He received “on the average one dollar per basket.”

The next year, his brothers planted tomatoes and sold them the same way. The brothers established routes and delivered tomatoes three times a week. Through experimenting with planting times, they found they could harvest from July to October, for first-frost came later on the mountain than in the valley.

Langston records that the Hyatts’ “… neighbors soon began to follow the same practice, and by 1932, the local markets could not take care of the crop produced.” Thus, began the crop that has made Chandler Mountain famous.

Production increased, and by 1940, McDonald Produce Company of Terry, Miss., was sending trucks to the mountain to be loaded with tomatoes for selling in Mississippi. With a longer growing season on the mountain, Mississippi and other states realized they could have fresh tomatoes into late autumn for their markets. In 1948, The Southern Aegis reported that the farmers shipped tomatoes to buyers “from New York to Miami.”

The farmers banded together and formed the Chandler Mountain Tomato Growers Association in 1943. As recorded by Langston, the following men were the first directors: Farmer Rogers, Cecil Smith, Hershal Smith, J.D. Osborne and Clarence Smith. The association incorporated in 1945. There were two packing houses for processing the crops, and that year, the association graded approximately 30,000 bushels of tomatoes.

Production continued to increase, and in 1946, Ross Roberson and J.D. Osborne built packing sheds near Whitney on the Birmingham to Chattanooga highway—U.S. 11. In 1947, the association processed 60,000 bushels of tomatoes, some coming now from Blount County farms.

As the 1948 season progressed, farmers saw excellent harvests and sales. October came with prices reaching $3.50 a bushel. Then disaster struck. As reported in the Oct. 22, 1948, issue of The Southern Aegis, an “unseasonable ‘snap-freeze’ that swept over most of Alabama Sunday night (October 17)” ruined an estimated 40,000 bushels of tomatoes. The Aegis put the financial loss at between $100,000 and $150,000.

Most farmers are invincible, and gradually tomato farmers recovered, and production still flourishes today.

So, the next time you slather mayonnaise on two pieces of white bread and cut thick slices of Chandler Mountain goodness for your sandwich, remember Otis Hyatt, who started it all.

And as you take your first juicy bite, whisper thanksgiving to the Lord for this summer satisfaction!

Liberty Cemetery

Storied final resting place piques interest

Story by Joe Whitten
Submitted photos

Just north of Odenville, in the sheltering earth of Liberty Cemetery, repose the remains of some of St. Clair County’s early settlers in Beaver Valley.

The cemetery rises in gentle slopes to the left, right and rear of the circa-1850 church building. Frank Watson’s survey of the cemetery lists the names and dates for 22 people who were born more than 200 years ago. Of those 22, nine were born in the 18th Century.

Old newspaper articles record that early in the 1820s, worship services were held on the site where Liberty Church stands today. The first building, a log structure, served as a community church. In 1835, Rev. James Guthrie organized a Cumberland Presbyterian Church there. The church remained Liberty Cumberland Presbyterian Church until near the end of the 20th Century, when it once again became a community church. Local tradition states the present building was constructed around 1850, and the style of its architecture gives credence to that date. Frank Watson’s cemetery survey shows the first burial occurred in 1833.

The earliest Beaver Valley settlers buried in Liberty Cemetery are John Ash (1783-1872) and wife, Margaret Newton Ash (1795-1855). John, Margaret and her parents, Thomas and Ann Newton, had joined a westward bound caravan that had progressed into Alabama Territory in 1817. The caravan had camped in the vicinity that would later be south of Ashville on today’s US 411.

Betsy Ann Ash was in a horse-drawn wagon when one of the men shot at a turkey. The horse bolted at the shot, causing Betsy Ann to fall from the wagon, breaking her neck. The Ash and Newton families, feeling they could not leave the grave of Betsy Ann and continue west, scouted out the valley. Finding the area a commodious land, the families bid farewell to the westward caravan, and settled in what would become St. Clair County, Alabama.

John Ash and his father-in-law, Thomas Newton, constructed, within sight of Betsy Ann’s grave, a log cabin to live in as they settled in this land. That 1817 structure remains today as the oldest house in St. Clair County. The next year, John Ash built his own home.

Written accounts state that in 1818, not too far distant from the Newton cabin, John built a log home. As years went by, John added to the home, encasing the log home within the new. He planked over the inside log walls, making the home more fashionable. Although in need of restoration today, the home still stands and is on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage and the National Register of Historic Places.

John Ash helped establish St. Clair County and participated in both local and state affairs, serving as a county judge and member of the first Alabama State Senate. The town of Ashville honors John Ash by bearing his name.

John and Margaret Ash are buried side-by-side at Liberty, but they are memorialized with modern markers. The original ledger-style stones covering the entire grave were removed to Ashville. Though broken, they survived and lie in a place of honor at Ashville City Hall.

Henry Looney (1797-1876) and his father, John, came through what would be St. Clair County in 1813 as Tennessee volunteers with Andrew Jackson, who had come to subdue Native-American uprisings. Along with Jackson and his men, they helped construct Ft. Strother and fought with Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

 After the Indian Wars concluded, John Looney and wife, Rebecca, moved their family to Alabama in 1817. Originally intending to settle on the east side of the Coosa River, they changed plans after learning the Creeks still controlled lands east of the Coosa and chose to settle on the west side in today’s Beaver Valley. Old record books show that John recorded two forties (40 acres), and in 1818, he and sons Henry, Jack and Asa set to work building a log home.

In a brochure titled, “The Henry Looney House,” Mattie Lou Teague Crow described the process of building: “Trees were cut, squared, notched and hauled to the building site. Stones for the foundation were quarried from the mountainside and creek bed. Bricks for chimneys were molded and baked. Shingles were rived and stacked to dry. Late in the year, the family left their wagons and lean-tos and took up residency in their new home.”

Winter moved into spring, and the rains came, swelling the creek and flooding the home. After the flood, mosquitoes invaded and several family members suffered from chills and fever. John Looney realized he’d chosen the wrong location. So, he and the boys dismantled the home and hauled the logs to higher ground and reconstructed it.

The house stands today, thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Creitz, who donated the home and plot of ground to the St. Clair Historical Society, which supervised the restoration of the home and operates it today as a museum.

 After his father’s death in 1827, Henry became head of the family. In 1838, Henry married Jane Rutherford Ash, daughter of John Ash. They continued living in the home, and it became known as the “Henry Looney Home.” It stands today as a treasure for both Alabama and St. Clair County, for it is the only surviving double-dog trot pioneer home still standing in our state.

Henry Looney died in 1876 and is buried at Liberty. After his death, his wife moved to Texas, where she died in 1901.

Settling Odenville

Methodist minister Christopher Vandegrift (1773-1844) and wife, Rebecca Amberson Vandegrift (1777-1852), left Chester County, South Carolina, in 1821 and migrated westward. While stopping for rest in Jasper County, Georgia, their daughter, Ellen (1800-1853), met a young man, Peter Hardin (1803-1887). They fell in love and wished to marry. Christopher agreed to the marriage if Peter would join their caravan. Love won, and the westward trek progressed into today’s Odenville, where the Vandegrifts and Hardins settled in December 1821. Both Christopher and Peter constructed homes where they settled.

The Vandegrifts became leaders in community and church. In 1835, Christopher served as an elder in the organization of Liberty Cumberland Presbyterian Church. In today’s Odenville Presbyterian Church, Christopher’s descendants worship and serve there, continuing the godly influence of their ancestors.

Peter Hardin constructed a log home in 1824, which was lived in by his descendants until 1975. Nell Hardin Hodges was the last Hardin to live there. The home, which had been added to over the years, remained standing until 1990. Today a church and a store now occupy the property where the cabin stood for 166 years.

The area where Peter settled came to be called Hardin’s Shop. He established two businesses, a blacksmithery and a cabinet shop. A few items from both remain in Odenville. In addition to the businesses, Peter was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, having been ordained Jan. 3, 1850. He is on record as having preached the first sermon in the circa-1850 Liberty Church building still in use today.

Peter Hardin died in 1887. Myrtle Maddox Kinney, whose father would have known Peter, said in a 1990 interview that Peter had gone to the field to pull corn. When the wagon was loaded, he started back and “…somehow or another, the horses turned the wagon over and the load of corn fell on him and killed him. He was up there by himself.”

The Southern Aegis reported Peter’s death in the Nov. 30, 1887, issue. Then in the Aug. 9, 1888, issue it announced: “The funeral of Mr. Peter Hardin will be preached by Rev. A.B. Wilson of Branchville, assisted by Rev. G.F. Boyd, on the second Sabbath of August. …” Often in those days, a body would be buried, but the funeral not be preached until the next Sunday the circuit-riding preacher came to town, usually no more than three weeks after the burial. This was eight months after Peter’s death. The puzzle was unknotted by a descendant living in Sunflower Mississippi, who recognized the Rev. G.F. Boyd as Peter’s cousin. The family had waited until Rev. Boyd could come from another state to preach the funeral.

The first brick house in St. Clair County was constructed by Obadiah Mize (1780-1852). Obadiah and wife, Sarah Frazier Mize (1789-1855), probably came into St. Clair County shortly after the Hardins and Vandegrifts, for he settled not too far from their homes.

According to a file in the Ashville Museum and Archives, the brick house is described in some 1932 notes. “Mr. Mize built this two-story home, consisting of six rooms on the first floor and three on the second, of brick which were made there on the lot of the building.”

In a photograph belonging to Frank Watson, you can see the bricks were laid Flemish bond rather than the more ordinary American bond. In Teresa Morris’ notes from an interview conducted in the 1970s, she writes, “In 1830, Mr. Mize built a two-story brick home … on the property which fronted Old Montevallo Road, and this house, known as ‘The Old Brick’, remained a landmark until it was demolished in 1930.”

When The Old Brick was demolished, the owners constructed a wood-frame home on the stone foundation of the old house. That house remains occupied today. They used the bricks to construct a retaining wall near the highway. The Fortson Museum in Odenville displays a brick from the house.

All in the family

Israel Pickens Hardwick was born in 1813 in Jasper County, Georgia. Roland Holcomb wrote about Pickens in A Hardwick Family Tree that Pickens’ sisters, Lydia and Susan, married Vandegrift brothers, John and William. But the Vandegrift brothers had no sister for Pickens to wed. No problem – he just waited 30 years until the third brother, Jim Vandegrift, had a daughter who was old enough to marry. Therefore in 1863, at the age of 50, he married Jim’s daughter, Nancy Ellen Vandegrift, age 17. He came safely through the Civil War and outlived his wife and all his contemporaries. In 1923, at age 110, Israel Pickens Hardwick “was gathered to his fathers” and was laid to rest at Liberty.

The origin of Hardwick Tunnel

Pickens served in Company C, 18th Infantry Regiment, Confederate States of America. Roland Holcomb recounts a Pickens’ story that happened when the railroad was being put through Odenville very early in the 20th Century. He had given the Seaboard Airline the land and rights to build a tunnel through the mountain as long as the tunnel be called Hardwick and that the train would stop there. Seaboard Airline agreed.

Holcomb writes, “He (Pickens) frequently dined with the tunnel construction crews who were billeted on the right-of-way near his home. One evening, a visiting railroad supervisor from the North made some remark about the South that angered the old man.

“While he said nothing, he got up and left the table. He returned a short time later with his rifle, prepared, as he said later, to demonstrate that the Army taught him well how to shoot Yankees. Fortunately, some of the local men on the crew, who knew the old man and recognized the signs, had spirited the visitor away.” Such was Israel Pickens Hardwick.

Lost at sea, but not forgotten

One marked grave has no body buried there. The stone, for the son of Louis and Marze Forman, reads: “Forman Austen Mize / Feb 13, 1900 / Lost on USS Cyclops / March 1918 / Gone but not forgotten / Son.”

The Cyclops was launched in 1910, and when the United States entered World War I, it was commissioned in 1917 for military use. In February 1918, loaded with manganese, she departed Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, bound for Baltimore. She stopped in Barbados, then sailed on.

Her last sighting, according to accounts, was March 9, 1918. Sailing into the area known as the Bermuda Triangle, the Cyclops vanished, and as author Jerry Smith records in Uniquely St. Clair “… no distress call or other message was heard on the wireless. Nor was a single body or piece of wreckage or artifact ever found.”

By some accounts, the ship had been overloaded in Brazil and when it encountered turbulent sea weather in the Triangle, it could not survive and sank. Others propose that a German submarine torpedoed it or that Germans captured the ship. Or did the Bermuda Triangle swallow it? Some consider that theory outlandish, others not.

Family tree yields university president

The Rev. James Benjamin Stovall (1868-1917), a beloved Presbyterian minister, not only pastored churches in St. Clair County, but was also president of Spring Lake College in Springville.

In 1915, he accepted the call to pastor Brent Presbyterian Church. He died there in 1917 when, as recorded in the History of Brent Baptist Church, by Sybil McKinley, “He was standing in the back of the wagon holding on to a cabinet being moved, when the horse lurched forward throwing him off and pulling the cabinet down on top of him.” His wife, Effie Fowler Stovall (1873-1970), continued living in Brent, raising her children there and becoming a guiding light to the community.

James and Effie’s daughter, Chamintey “Mittie” Stovall, married Ralph Thomas, an educator. Their son, Joab Thomas, attended Harvard, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in biological sciences. Well respected among colleges and universities, Dr. Joab Thomas served as chancellor of North Carolina State University and as president of the University of Alabama and of Pennsylvania State University.

The earliest Stovall date in the cemetery is that of Matriarch Sarah Stovall (1791-1858). She reposes with numerous other Stovalls in Liberty Cemetery. Sarah’s husband, Benjamin, died in Jefferson County and is buried there

Three-shot suicide?

The marker at the grave of R.M. Steed (1828-1899) causes no one to pause and ponder. However, his reported death in The Southern Aegis, Feb. 8, 1899, brings the reader to a sudden stop. It reads: “Richard M. Stead [corrected the next week to ‘Richmond Steed’], residing near Odenville, St. Clair county, on Monday the 6th inst., committed suicide by shooting himself three times.

“The deceased was well known in the county, having been born and raised here. He was about 73 years of age, was a farmer of sturdy habits and had been in a depressed state of mind for some time. During the war he had been a soldier in the federal army, and the weapon used in his own death was an army revolver he brought home at the close of the war and had preserved ever since as a relic of the war.”

In 1994, someone with Steed connections read the above and commented that the family always doubted his death to be suicide. A three-shot suicide does stretch the imagination.

Final resting place indeed

Some of those buried in Liberty Cemetery influenced the establishing of St. Clair County and have left names and influence well-etched into her history. Most lived unassuming lives, nurtured home and children, and left their names etched upon hearts and lives.

In the end, relentless Death gathers all to a final resting place—equality in mortality. Thomas Gray expressed it well in his “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power
And all that beauty, all that wealth ever gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour,
The paths of glory lead only to the grave.

Lost schools of St. Clair

Once the heartbeat of local communities

Story by Joe Whitten
Submitted photos

Schools were the heart-beat of communities for most of St. Clair County’s past 200 years. Wherever folk settled in the county, they soon organized a school which became central to community activity. Information is gleaned from newspapers, local and family histories, and diaries for some schools. For others, only a remembered name.

Lost town of Easonville housed thriving schools

About 1820, Bolivor Eason settled in Coosa Valley. Other families came, and by the end of the decade, the settlement had its first school, which met in homes. By the 1860s, classes met in the Coosa Valley Baptist Church.

When the post office came in 1872, the town became Easonville. By the1880s, Coosa Valley High School was established there in a one-story building. Later, they constructed a two-story building containing an auditorium and classrooms, and it served Easonville, Cropwell and Mt. Pisgah.

  • Vera Wadsworth recorded these prominent Alabamians associated with Easonville schools:
  • Dr. Henry J. Willingham, state superintendent of Education and later president of Florence State Teachers’ College.
  • Dr. John W. Abercrombie, state superintendent of Education, member of Congress, and President of the University of Alabama.
  • Dr. Issac W. Hill, state superintendent of Education.
  • Dr. Thomas Neal, president of Howard College, now Samford University.

Today, the waters of Lake Logan Martin lap over the lost town of Easonville.

A log school was located at Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church. Lee Wadsworth (b.1872) recalled the building as a crude one, constructed in 1870 and located on the ridge where the cemetery is today. In the 1880s, the community built a better school that contained benches with backs, glass windows and a heater for winter. Maurine Sims, in A History of Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, states that when the school was torn down, the wood was used to build a barn.

 

Eden school has storied history

The date for Eden’s first school is uncertain, but New Hope Baptist Church was organized in 1824, and where there was a church, there was usually a school. A Dec. 15, 1960, St. Clair News-Aegis article says that in 1875, Eden school was a log building located on Wolf Creek Road. The later three-room school was located where the church gym stands today. That building was used for both school and church until about 1900 when a separate two-story school was constructed. A tornado in the 1920s damaged the school, but it was repaired and used until 1948 when classes moved into a new building.

 

Cook Springs School lasted until 1950s

Cook Springs School, located near the hotel and the Baptist church, began in the 1870s and continued classes for more than 70 years. In The Village and Its Neighbor, Anita Smith writes that Russell Carreker donated the land for the first school. Then in 1914, LaFayette and Eliza Cooke donated additional land, and a larger two-room school replaced the first building. Smith states that it was a spacious building, having “large windows, a foyer-like hallway…, a big pot-bellied stove that provided better heating, and a bit of space set aside for a coat closet.” Outhouses served bathroom needs; hand pumps outside provided water. The school closed in the 1950s.

 

Mining company associated with five schools

The DeBardelabens’ Alabama Fuel and Iron Company operated schools in their mining communities of Margaret and Acmar. Fred Marvin’s history, Alabama Fuel and Iron Company and Its People, boasts that in addition to the schools on company property, the company partnered with the St. Clair County Board of Education to operate the schools at “Low Gap, White’s Chapel, and Copper Springs.” Marvin’s history states that in taking the three schools, the company “… rebuilt the structures, making them neat and attractive and assumed all expense attached to their maintenance, although many of the children attending are not those of company employees.” In both White’s Chapel and Low Gap, which accommodated white children, the buildings were of field-stone construction. There’s no record of work done at Copper Springs School in Branchville.

White’s Chapel School closed at the end of the 1960-61session. Afterwards, these students attended Moody schools through the ninth-grade and then St. Clair County High School until the Board of Education established Moody High School.

Low Gap School burned Feb. 13, 1946. Students finished the year at Low Gap United Methodist Church, but in the fall, these students began attending school in Odenville.

In Margaret, the company provided schools for both races. For the white community, the schoolhouse was at the top of School Street. According to Marie Butler in Margaret, Alabama … and now there’s gold!, in 1916 Thomas Glover was principal and “taught by the Golden Rule.” Two early teachers were Elma Lee Sansing and Annie Laurie Merritt, both teaching multiple grades. The first school, c1916, burned in 1924, and the company erected another building which also burned in 1941. A wood-frame replacement served as the school until it closed in 1965.

For the black community, the two-story St. Philips Methodist Church/Beulah Baptist Church was finished in 1918 as a community building. School met in the downstairs, and church met upstairs with Methodists and Baptists meeting on different Sundays. This continued as a school with Professor S.J. Dillard as principal until the 1930s when a school was built in the black community on today’s South Hillcrest Street.

Marie Butler records in her book that Professor Dillard served as principal until his retirement in 1953. Then, Mrs. Eddie Lee Turnbough Franks, Professor Dillard’s student, became principal. Mrs. Bernice Holston Young and Mrs. Alberta Jones also taught in this school in the 1950s. Professor Dillard’s son and student, Oliver W. Dillard, made a career of the Army and retired as a brigadier general.

In a brief history of Copper Springs Baptist Church, William Ragland records that the first school building was used for both school and church. The log building, built in 1873 by the Formans, Turnbaughs, and Vandegrifts, stood until the late 1800s when it was torn down and replaced by a frame building.

The first teachers at Copper Springs were Mrs. Mary Forman and Professor Hawkins. Mrs. Eddie Lee Franks taught there in the 1930s. Although Fred Marvin’s history says the DeBardelabens helped the Copper Springs School, Mr. Ragland didn’t mention it in his history or in a 1990s interview with this author. This school closed in the 1940s. Then, depending on the grade, students went to Margaret or Ruben Yancey in Ashville.

 

In Ashville, Yancey School has historic roots

Ruben Yancey School was a continuation of the first school for black students in St. Clair County. Mrs. Bessie Byers wrote of this school, saying, “Ashville’s first school for colored children was housed in the ‘Old Hall,’ which stood below the Methodist Church located on what today is known as 10th Street.” On April 15, 1872, Pope Montgomery and wife deeded a building to the Methodist Episcopal Church “to serve as a church and a school for colored children.” Student numbers increased until some classes met in the Methodist Church.

By 1935, they needed a new building, and the Board of Education bought from James Beason three acres on a hill top known as the “Jim Beason Pasture.” Here, they constructed a three-room, white-painted frame building, well lighted by windows. This was named the Ashville Colored High School, which served grades one through 12.

Ruben Yancey, an Ashville native, became principal in 1947 and served until 1956. Mrs. Byers wrote: “Because of his humanitarian efforts, the community grew and became a better place to live.”

Professor Yancey worked toward getting a larger facility with a lunchroom and a library. This came to fruition in the 1950s with help from Ashville’s white citizens. Forced into retirement by poor health, Professor Yancey did not live to see the building finished.

At completion, Principal Lloyd Newton and school friends requested the County Board of Education name the school Ruben Yancey in honor of the man who had labored for the betterment of their community and school. Superintendent D.O. Langston and the Board honored the request. Professor Newton remained as principal there until integration and then finished his career as principal of Ashville Elementary School.

 

DAR School took its place in history books

Six miles north of Ashville on US 411, the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) School stood adjacent to Hopewell Baptist Church on a five-acre plot purchased by the State of Alabama in 1917 from Thomas S. Black and wife, Katie J. Black. This school operated until 1924 when it was relocated to Gunter Mountain, Marshall County, because that mountain area needed an accessible school.

Some years ago, Charles Pruett Fouts, Sr., who had attended there, recalled classmates as being Willis Hood, Arvil Glenn, Clyde Vaught, Phillman and Warren Knight, Eugene and Elbert Sprayberry, O. A. Hood, Fletcher and Ed Sheffield, and Alvin and Oscar Roberts.

 

Zion Hill, Gum Springs lay claim to school history

Ada Wilson Sulser (1897-1988) wrote about Zion Hill Schoolhouse, located next to Zion Hill Methodist Church on today’s Highway 33 in Slasham Valley. Having begun school there in 1903, she remembered it as a one-room school with classes meeting from November to April, weather permitting. The school burned twice, in 1903 and 1914.

Mrs. Sulser recalled the families of Cobb, Lowery, Palmer, McBrayer, Jester and Jenkins. Her teachers were Lena Shore, Tom McDaniel, John Gunter, Mr. Allman, Will King, Lonnie Kirby, Lewis Wright, Earl Palmer, John Teaver, Ethel Gilchrest and Lilly May Merchant.

Mrs. Sulser also mentioned the Ford Schoolhouse near Gum Springs Baptist Church and that the Baswells, Kirbys and Willards attended there.

 

Argo schools remembered

Earl Massey in his monograph “Argo Schools, 1820-1953,” wrote of Reed’s Grove School, stating that H. B. Venable and wife gave two acres on Blackjack Road for a school. He gives no date for this, but notes that in 1920 G.W. Minyard deeded one and a half acres to the State of Alabama to be a part Reed’s Grove School. In 1947, after the school closed, the County Board sold the property back to Mr. Minyard.

Massey also writes of Fairfield School, in the Wade community, on today’s US Highway 11 where it crosses I-59. Quoting Gordon Melton, student there in the 19th Century, he records: “There was a one-room schoolhouse on our farm facing the ‘big road’ as we called it then (Highway 11). … Fairfield School was about 150 yards from our house.” Melton recalled a school session as four or five months during fall and winter, when children could be spared from farm work, and wrote that some years as many as a hundred students enrolled in the one-teacher school. He remembered cows grazing around the school and the constant ringing of their bells disrupting class until boys would go chase the cows away. The school closed in 1930 and the School Board sold the property to Addie Waldren.

 

Springville ‘college’ not really a college

In Springville, Spring Lake College opened in 1893.This school consolidated the two existing high schools.

Although “college” was in its name, the grades covered were primary through high school. Tuition ranged from $1.50 for the primary class to $5 for the senior class. The curriculum included basic English and math but also offered:

  • Elementary Algebra and Latin, seventh-grade.
  • Word Analysis, French History, and Latin Grammar, eighth-grade.
  • Rhetoric, Philosophy, Cicero’s Orations, Higher Algebra and Geometry, freshman year.
  • Geology, Zoology, Botany, Latin Prose Composition and Horace, sophomore year.
  • Logic, Psychology, Chemistry, Cicero de Oratore, and Trigonometry, junior year.
  • American Classics, Political Economy, Mental and Moral Science, Evidences of Christianity, Astronomy, Analytical Geometry, Parliamentary Law and Oratory, senior year.

Greek was offered as well. For additional fees, students could take music, art or commercial classes of bookkeeping, shorthand and typewriting.

The Spring Lake College Catalogue for 1894-95 states that the school “…is the result of combining the two flourishing high schools of Springville under one management.” It speaks of Springville as “a community of the highest type of American citizenship,” and that “one of the chief glories of Springville is found in her ample facilities for lodging and feeding all who sojourn within her gates. Pupils are taken into the best families of the town. …”

Margaret Windom writes in her History of Springville that “On February 10, 1896, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church deeded the town of Springville the “building and ground known as Springlake College.” On Feb. 8, 1912, the school burned, and Springville constructed a two-story brick building which was used by Springville High School into the 1970s.

 

Early 20th Century schools no longer here

From Bethel community up US 411 almost to US 231, there existed several schools in the early 20th Century.

Bethel School stood across the highway from Bethel Baptist. A photo from the 1930s shows the student body with teachers I.W. Inzer and Mrs. Prickett.

Odenville was first called Walnut Grove and so was the school, which was probably organized shortly after the Hardins and Vandegrifts settled there in 1821. About 1864, a one-room log structure heated by a fireplace was constructed near today’s Pennington Garage. Jim Hardin was teacher. His school bell is in the Fortson Museum.

Much later, the area school was at Liberty on the Liberty Church property. The last year there was 1906. In 1907, Odenville Elementary School was built under the leadership of the county school system and began operation. This wooden building burned in the mid-1920s and was replaced by a field-stone structure.

Well into the 20th Century, there was a school for black students at Hardwick, off today’s Pleasant Valley Road. William Ragland recalled that Miss Mattie Johnson, teacher, often had as many as 90 students enrolled.

Friendship School, of field-stone construction, still stands today and is owned and used by Friendship Baptist Church. Though the date of origin is obscure, in the 1920s, C.J. Donahoo was principal, and Mrs. Bertha Bowlin was a teacher.

According to The Heritage of St. Clair County, Pine Forest School was on US 411 “west of today’s Pine Forest Baptist Church.” This school began operation around 1917 and continued until it closed in 1939. Henry Cash bought the building and property about 1947. Some years later, the Cash family sold the property to Clyde and Stella Mae Thomas.

 

Pell City had its share of schools

In Pell City and surrounding communities, several schools existed for black students. In an interview, Mrs. Marion Frazier referenced schools in New Town, Riverside and Greenfield. She named Morning Star in Ragland and Mt. Zion in Cropwell, and recalled that her mother spoke of New Life School, but didn’t recall its community location.

When asked about a school before St. Clair County Training School, she named the 1927 Rosenwald School. According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama, Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears Roebuck & Co., created the Rosenwald Fund to provide matching monies for schools in the rural South. In 1914 in Alabama, that fund helped build six schools for blacks. St. Clair County wasn’t mentioned in the article; however, Rosenwald School is remembered locally as the forerunner to the St. Clair County Training School.

This school was in the county school system, and the first seniors graduated in 1947. The last senior class graduated in 1969. With integration of county schools, the Training School became the Walter M. Kennedy Elementary-Intermediate School. Today it is Duran South. The Kennedy Elementary School was relocated to 19th Street.

Mrs. Frazier, a 1962 graduate, talked of the activities at the school, mentioning especially the choir and the band. Geneva Martin’s memories, written for the 50th reunion of the 1966 class, spoke of the homecoming parades, of Mr. Larry Turner leading the band in the parade, of dances after football games, of student variety shows, and of walking to the National Guard Armory for basketball games until “Mr. Kennedy’s efforts paid off in having an auditorium built.” She recalled Mr. Kennedy’s requiring men teachers to dress professionally by wearing ties.

Of the 1966 graduation, Ms. Martin wrote, “We walked across the stage with pride and our heads high. … We had a stern warning from Mr. Kennedy. He said remember, there were no actual diplomas in our books, and if we messed up that night, we would not get one. Oh, yes, we had to attend the last day of school. That’s how Mr. Kennedy rolled.”

Walter Kennedy finished his career as assistant superintendent of Education in St. Clair County.

 

Leaping Lizards! What kind of name is that?

The most unusual name for a school must be Lizard Lope. Located east of Ashville on today’s Highway 411, it was later called Union Grove—but no one knows the date the name changed. Tradition says the name arose when logs were being dressed and stacked for constructing log houses. Lizards would sun on the stacks and leap from log to log. Thus, Lizard Lope. l

 

Editor’s Note: St. Clair County is rich with school history, and there is much more to be mined from various sources. Discover Magazine encourages communities to collect and record history during this bicentennial year. We are fortunate that Lizard Lope did not lope into oblivion. Long live the memories.

New life for Little House

History saved and preserved
in Springville

Story and photos by Jerry C. Smith

The Springville Preservation Society refers to it simply as The Little House, but its transformation from forlorn vintage home to a quaint welcome center and community venue is no small story.

Built in St. Clair Springs sometime around 1880 (or 1835, depending on whom you ask), this homey two-room cottage was destined for demolition. In 2002, Roderick Brown made the society an offer: Move it, and it’s yours, but do it now. His only request was for a marker that acknowledges his gift. He’s since passed away, but a large oval plaque has been placed on the front porch in his honor.

The house was first relocated to the old Springville Lake property, where it underwent major restoration to prepare it for community use. Its windows were replaced with handcrafted copies of the originals. A fine front porch and tin roof were also added.

Springville’s John Trotter, who did most of the carpentry work, remembered those days well, “When we started this project, I was 6 feet, 4 inches tall and weighed over 200 pounds.” Now slimmer and a bit shorter, he quipped, “If we had to do this again, I would probably wind up 4 feet tall.”

A needlework plaque on the kitchen wall says it all: Hard work is the yeast that raises the dough. John, his wife Sara, and Gayle Hammonds were prime movers for the entire project and continue their leadership roles today, but other folks and factions have generously lent their support.

For instance, the magnificent wood flooring in the parlor was donated from a pile of demolition salvage. It was stored in a building belonging to Pearson Sawmill, owned by the family of Carol Pearson Waid, who, with her husband Frank, have worked tirelessly in other local restoration projects.

Originally painted a hideous green color, the 1-by-4-inch tongue-and-groove flooring had to be sanded and sealed, but is now a lustrous vintage pine color, complete with random worm tracks and deeply colored knots.

The Hammonds, the Trotters and other community members have donated furniture, kitchen equipment, labor and other goods and services to Little House, which now sits on land owned by the City of Springville.

Sara says, “A local councilman said (Gayle and Sara) were two of the most determined ladies he’d ever met.” They’ve worked tirelessly for years, seeking donations through local fashion shows and other fundraising activities.

Gayle adds, “For Sara, John and me, it’s been absolutely a labor of love.”

They point out that it’s by no means finished. It’s a perfect opportunity for local civic groups, garden clubs, Boy Scouts, landscapers, grass cutters, anyone with time and willingness to contribute something positive to the Springville community infrastructure.

John, who lives in a vintage home on Gin Street that he also restored, said, “When we got the house, it had no floors or ceilings, no bath and no wiring. We had to install all of it.” He pointed out a ceiling lamp and table lamp, both of which were converted from kerosene to electricity by the same electricians who wired the house using materials typical of rural electrification.

Other than a few comfort additions, such as air conditioning, there is little in the main parlor to betray Little House as being less than a century old. But the similarity ends there as you step into a modern kitchen, complete with microwave and refrigerator, then into a new bathroom, which is a story unto itself. The Society had intended using Little House as a welcome center on the old Spring Lake site, but found that it was not legal to install a septic system so close to the city’s water supply, thus the move to another location.

In 2012, the new front porch was removed, and the house was moved to its present location at 66 Walker Drive, just west of downtown Springville. Restoration work continued until recently, adding the restroom, floors, ceilings, a handicap ramp and reinstallation of the front porch. 

Gayle says it will serve several community functions. For one, it will be opened as a welcome center anytime there are large events, such as block parties, 5k races and Homestead Hollow events.

In addition, its main purpose is to serve as a rentable venue for small community group functions, including club meetings, showers, parties and other gatherings. Although actual occupancy is limited by fire law to 16, Gayle says there is ample level lawn space for tents, booths, outdoor festivities and overflow crowds.

Their brochure suggests wedding ceremonies on the front porch with bridal preparation inside, birthday parties, intimate dinners, anniversaries, child tea parties and any other functions not involving huge crowds.

Catering is available from The Choppin’ Block’s amazingly varied menu, or you can bring your own and use the in-house refrigerator and microwave. A limited number of chairs and tables are provided. For information or reservations, contact Sara Trotter at 205 467-3000.

Both Sara and Gayle emphasized that a quick private tour can easily be arranged at very short notice by phone, either to Sara or to Gayle, at 205-937-3071. Gayle adds, “We all live less than 10 minutes away and would be glad to meet you there.”

To reach Little House, go west from the four-way stop in Springville for about a quarter mile, then left on Walker Drive. The house will be on your immediate right. GPS coordinates are 33.76511N 86.4802W.

Editor’s Note: We are sad to report that Mr. Trotter passed away in late August, a few weeks after our story interview.