Friday, October 8, 2021

Claudia Waddell Roberts, the Octagon House & "The Rusty Key"

One of Alabama's most unusual private residences from the antebellum period is the Octagon House in Clayton in Barbour County. The house was constructed between 1859 and 1861 by businessman Benjamin Petty at a time when the octagon shape was popular in the U.S. In 1899 the house passed to Petty's daughter and her husband, who did not need such large a large space. A neighbor, Judge Bob Roberts, offered to exchange his smaller house and pay the difference in cash, so he and his wife Claudia moved into what is also known as the Petty-Roberts House in 1901. The residence was  eventually purchased by the town from their daughter Mary's estate and is now used as an event facility. 

In the late 1930's, perhaps 1938, Claudia Waddell Roberts privately published in Montgomery a 43-page chapbook containing four short stories: "The Rusty Key", "A Fair Exchange", "The Man With a Past" and "In the Bridal Chamber." The full title of the work is The Rusty Key: Prize Stories of the Deep South. The publication is extremely rare; no copies are listed for sale at Bookfinder.com, which aggregates offerings from over 100,000 bookseller worldwide. 

At some point I stumbled across an entry for The Rusty Key on Amazon, but didn't save the URL and now can't find it again. However, I did save this description, author unknown:

5" x 7½" No publishing information or dates, but my internet research suggests it dates to the 1930s. Collection of 4 Short Stories: THE RUSTY KEY First prize winner in the May Harris short story contest through the Press and Authors Club, Montgomery, Alabama Judges: English Department University of Alabama Sold to Mystery Magazine, New York City A FAIR EXCHANGE - An Unusual Incident in the Closing Days of the Civil War A prize winner in The Progressive Farmer's short story contest "The paragraph about Isabel as the type of Southern woman during the Sixties is like a cameo', writes a Kentuckian, 'and that one about the Kentucky soldier, "I fight for principle", is the epitome of all that can be said about the State that was preserved for the Union. For years and years to come this story should be read as a true picture of the Southern Woman, and the chivalry of Old Kaintuck." THE MAN WITH A PAST - Founded on a True Incident of the Civil War Shared 2nd prize in the short story contest of the old Sunny South, Atlanta, Georgia (The Sunny South was a weekly newspaper from 1875-1907) IN THE BRIDAL CHAMBER Entered in The Montgomery Journal Ghost Story Contest along with 413 other stories from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia This story was awarded first prize "because of the excellence of the writing," the judges state, "and the novel plot construction"

As noted in this paragraph, and below in the magazine's listing, "The Rusty Key" was published in the May 1, 1926, issue of Mystery Magazine, and is set the basement of the Octagon House. Whether the other stories were published elsewhere, and whether Roberts ever published anything else is unknown. Claudia Waddell Roberts, born February 4, 1861, died on July 20, 1950. Her husband Judge Roberts had died in 1938. Both are buried in the Clayton City Cemetery. 

Maybe one day I'll get to read those stories...




A contemporary photograph of the house. The EOA's main article has plans and extensive discussion of the upper two floors and the basement. 

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama 




"During the 1920s, the façade of the Octagon House was changed drastically with the addition of two-story wraparound porches. In the 1980s, they were removed when the house was restored to its original appearance by the Clayton Historic Preservation Society."

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama







Note the cover story by Augustus Thomas. He was a Midwestern author whose 1891 play "Alabama" I've written about here. 


Source: FictionMags Index



Source: Waymarking.com 


 


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