This Place Matters

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THIS PLACE MATTERS

Antebellum Homes of Oxford

BY HUNTER C. GENTRY

This Place Matters is an annual campaign that is promoted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation each May. It is a social media campaign aimed to create awareness to celebrate places that are meaningful to them and their communities.

Since writing for the Oxford Access magazine, I have always wanted to write a piece telling the story of Oxford’s homes built before the Civil War. To me, Oxford’s few Antebellum homes tell the story of our small humble beginnings as a hamlet. Our city was founded by hardworking farm laborers that lived in comfortable yet straightforward dwellings. The homes in our community were not extravagant as the plantations of the Black Belt. Many of our homes began as a single room cabin later evolving to dogtrot and eventually an enclosed center-hall home with rooms on both sides. The evolution of the house happened as the owner obtained more wealth, and it would ultimately accommodate growing families.

In 1979, the City of Oxford received a $10,000 grant to research, collect, and write the history of Oxford’s historic homes, buildings, sites, and ruins. Under the leadership of Mayor Bester Adams, this project was completed. Today, the files are stored in the Oxford Room at the Oxford Public Library for citizens and researchers to use. Information for the homes featured in this article was gathered from that collection. Less than 15 homes constructed in Oxford before 1862 are still standing; eight of those are featured in this article.

GRAHAM-TOLAND HOME ca. 1885

The Graham-Toland Home is significant due to the Greek Revival architecture and few modifications to the exterior since construction about 1855. In the 1870s, John Graham and Elizabeth Calloway Graham resided in the home with their family. Graham was a North Carolinian by birth and migrated to Calhoun County in the 1830s with his family. He was a merchant, member of the Baptist Church, and served as an alderman during his time in Oxford. The Toland and Hand families have been residents of the home since before 1900.

Sources: Ancestry.com, Oxford Public Library- Oxford Room Collection, and The Anniston Star

Robertson-McCord Home ca. 1845-1850

The Robertson-McCord Home was originally constructed as a one-room cabin between 1845 and 1850. The house today is one of Oxford’s few Antebellum dwellings that exemplifies the architectural vernacular “I-House” with a few Victorian modifications throughout. Before 1868, E.G. Robertson and Mary Stamps Robertson resided in the home with their family. Robertson was a member of the local “Dudley Snow Rangers” that served in the Confederate States Army, and an early Reconstruction Era Merchant and Businessman. The Borders, McCord, and Watson families have been residents of the home.

Dudley Snow Home ca. 1832

The Snow Home was constructed by Dudley Snow and Priscilla Mounger Snow in 1832. The home was originally built as a one and a half story dogtrot with rooms on each side of an open center hall. Later modifications included shed rooms at the front and rear. The Snow home is the oldest standing home in Oxford and perhaps the county. Snow and his family were the first European descent settlers to the area now known as Oxford. In the 1960s, George Mizzell and Myra Farmer Mizzell purchased and extensively renovated the home. Mrs. Mizzell was a direct descendant of Snow. Due to the expansion of the Quintard Mall, the house was moved and relocated a few miles south.

Beard Home ca. 1850-1860

The Beard Home represents three major stages of construction for many of the earliest homes of Oxford and the Southern United States. Constructed between 1850 and 1860, the house started as a simple frame dwelling with an open dogtrot. Later embellished ornamental porch supports, possibly added during the Victorian Era, were added along with shiplap siding. Then in the 20th century, a renovation was done to the porch along with windows and door replacement. Dr. Joel W. Watkins–a Druggist and Physician from Greene County, Georgia–and his family resided in the home before 1874. Most notably, the house was occupied by William H. Beard, Captain of the Oxford Police Department. Captain Beard purchased the household in the early 1950s with his wife, Katherine Smith Beard. In 1977, Captain Beard was transporting a prisoner and was brutally murdered in St. Clair County, Alabama. The Brock, Dodd, and Shears families have also been residents of the home.

Gladden-Reaves Home ca. 1850

The Gladden-Reaves Home is significant due to its Antebellum Modified Greek Revival Architecture. The home was constructed about 1850 and features a center-hall with rooms on each side and the original double-leaf transom doors at each end of the hall. In the basement of the home, the exposed crude logs show the initial construction of the house. The front porch has been extensively modified and enclosed. James A. Gladden and his family resided in the home in the 1880s. Gladden married Martha Kelly, sister of James S. Kelly who served as Mayor during the Reconstruction Era. Gladden was a farmer and the father-in-law to Professor John L. Dodson, founder of the Oxford College. The Reaves family have also been residents of the home.

Clardy-Yoe-Stewart Home ca. 1860

The Clardy-Yoe-Stewart Home is a center-hall plan featuring Modified Greek Revival Architecture with early Victorian characteristics. The oldest portion of the home appears to be the rear rooms, constructed about 1860. The Zedekiah H. Clardy family occupied the house in the 1870s. Clardy was a widely known and talented brick mason that built the Clardy Mansion near the Oxford College and the Calhoun County Courthouse that was located in Jacksonville, Alabama. The Yoe and Stewart families have also been residents of the home.

Fincher Home ca. 1860

The Fincher Home was originally constructed as a two-room dogtrot between the front and rear porches around 1860. Extensive modifications were completed near the end of the 19th century during the Victorian Era. Renovations included changes to the porch, rear additions, enclosure of the dogtrot, and an exterior façade replacement. Alious A. Fincher and Mable Austin Fincher purchased the home in 1955.

Burns-Phillips Home ca. 1860

The Burns-Phillips Home is a modified Greek Revival home with a center hall plan constructed about 1860. The front door appears to be a modification from the 1880s. John G. Burns and Martha O’Neal Burns and their family resided in the home in the 1890s. Burns was a local meat butcher that migrated from Goodwater. The Phillips Family later occupied the home.

THE ALABAMA CATALOG: HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY A Guide to Early Architecture

BY ROBERT GAMBLE

THE BASIC DOGTROT HOUSE (statewide; nineteenth to the early twentieth century) As its sobriquet might suggest, the open-passage dogtrot house was the dwelling of the common man in antebellum Alabama. {13, 14} It was not, however, necessarily limited to the common man. Numerous antebellum travel accounts attest to the fact that the dogtrot was a familiar sight among the richest plantation districts. The open-ended central passage–the dogtrot itself–answered superbly as a breezeswept, yet sheltered and semiprivate outdoors living and working space for the hot summer months.

THE I HOUSE WITH SHEDS (Statewide, especially central and southern Alabama; early to the middle nineteenth century) The “I” house, so named by folk architectural specialist Fred Kiffen in the 1930s, was perhaps the most common form of a two-story house in English North America. Tall and narrow in profile, it was inevitably two rooms high and one room deep.

NEOCLASSICISM: THE GREEK REVIVAL PHASE (mid-1830s to 1860s) While pre-Greek Revival neoclassicism could display an almost feminine lightness, the Greek Revival itself was heavy, rectilinear, emphatically masculine in scale. The style emerged out of a fervor for things Hellenic that swept the Western world from Czarist Russia to Canada and the United States during the early nineteenth century. In the Deep South, needless to say, Greek Revival architecture would become indelibly linked with the plantation legend, although the rough-and-tumble, semi frontier society that so eagerly embraced the new fashion would hardly lay claim to the timeless grave with which post-Civil War apologists, and later Hollywood film-maker, sought to imbue it. The style spread rapidly, especially in the rich Black Belt counties of central Alabama, where its advent coincided with the first real flush of cotton prosperity. By the late 1840s, it held almost unchallenged sway–expressing itself in countless buildings from the conventional pillared house to the country store finished off at the front gable end with a wooden pediment, entablature, and raking cornice.

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