A Visit to Gaineswood, Part 2

This post is part 2 in a description of our trip last year through Demopolis to see the Gaineswood mansion. In part 1 I included some history of the home and its inhabitants. This post looks mostly at the interior; further comments are below.

I think the cabin in view beyond the nicely kept grounds housed the cook and is one of the only remaining outbuildings from the antebellum period. 

Here is the view as you come into Gaineswood from the public entrance at what seems to be the back of the house, but I think was actually the front entrance originally. In the lower right can be seen the wooden pineapple carved by Whitfield that once topped the gazebo on the property. 

On the left and right foreground are two rooms now used as a small gift shop and a museum about Gaineswood. Originally they were reception rooms for arriving visitors, one for the ladies and one for the gentlemen. 

The furnishings and decor in every room on the first floor are pretty impressive.

You can see the elaborate decorations on the domes in this photo. A more detailed description is below. 

Unfortunately, I did not make a note of people in the portraits at Gaineswood and have been unable to find that information online. Anyone who knows is welcome to enlighten me in the comments!

A small part of the overhead dome is visible in this dining room photo.

In the 1930's Gaineswood was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey. The Alabama Dept. of Archives and History page for this photo identifies the space as the dining room, but I think it's actually the drawing room/parlor/library seen in the other HABS photo below. 

"The ceiling is one of two identical domes. The plaster ornamentation of the domes is beautiful in its artistry of Greek honesuckles, encased in flowing scrolls, each of which each is crested with a tiny flower. Artistically spaced windows are separated by miniature columns and from the top of the cupolas, chandeliers hang on long chains. The rich red carpeting, elegant gold drapes and gleaming furniture further enhance the beauty of this room." 

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History Digital Collections

That wallpaper! 

Here is one of two marble fireplaces in the house. The painting is by Nathan Whitfield and titled "The Burning of Eliza Battle". Whitfield witnessed the steamboat disaster on March 1, 1858, when the boat was destroyed by fire on the Tombigbee River. More than 30 people died, and the event has entered Alabama folklore, most notably in "The Phantom Steamboat of the Tombigee" tale in Kathryn Tucker Windham's 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffry. 

One of the Venetian glass transoms with classical scenes created by John Gibson, who also designed stained glass for the U.S. Capitol. 

This desk and books belonged to Dr. Bryan Watkins Whitfield [1828-1908], the son of Nathan Whitfield who designed and developed Gaineswood. The son did order fireplace mantels from Philadelphia and create the circular observation deck on the house. 

Watkins graduated from medical school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1853. During the antebellum period and for many years afterward, southerners who could afford it went north for medical training or even to Europe since medical schools in the south were inadequate. Watkins is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Demopolis. Bryan W. Whitfield Hospital opened in Demopolis in 1953.

Some more of the elaborate woodwork throughout the house

The house has plenty of columns indoors as well!

The other marble fireplace can be seen in this photo. 

"Twenty by thirty feet, the room is gorgeously furnished, and at either end has identical gray marble mantels with wreathed rosettes decorating the head slabs. The ceiling of this room is fashioned in protruding sections of crossbeams, all highly embossed with plaster designs. The interlacing of the beams form deep coffers; each of which is studded with dainty rosettes."

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History Digital Collections

In the first floor master bedroom is the bed brought from North Carolina

One of the upstairs bedrooms where the decor is much more utilitarian! Of course, only the family or guests staying overnight would see these rooms. 

On the left is the gazebo once topped by the carved wooden pineapple.

The Wikipedia entry on Gaineswood notes, "The exterior features the use of eighteen fluted Doric columns and fourteen plain square pillars to support the three porches, the main portico, and the porte-cochère. The assorted porches surround most of three sides of the structure." 

A hawk oversaw our departure from his perch on the observation ring, where in its prime Gaineswood's residents could view their vast property. 

A Visit to Gaineswood, Part 1

In March 2018 we visited our son Amos in New Orleans. On the way back we spent the night in Demopolis; I've  written about that stay here. We passed through Eutaw on the way home the next day, and a bit about that town is here.

We stayed in Demopolis to see the spectacular mansion of Gaineswood, and now I'm posting a two-part piece devoted just to that former home and now museum. If you have never been to Gaineswood, it's well worth a visit if you get to that part of the state. Actually, it's worth a special trip just to see it. Demopolis also has other historic structures to see including house museums Bluff Hall and Lyon Hall.  

We arrived on a weekday morning at about 10 AM when the home opened to the public. The lady who turned out to be our guide was picking up some trash near the gate where we parked. After some small talk we started walking toward the public entrance at the rear and began our tour.

A 1973 statement about Gaineswood from the National Park Service's National Historic Landmarks Program gives a brief summation of its architectural gems:

Begun in 1842 and modified in stages over eighteen years (1843-1861), Gaineswood is one of America's most unusual neoclassical Greek Revival-style mansions. Amateur architect and cotton planter Nathan Bryan Whitfield refined his mansion with the help of skilled African-American craftsmen as the stylistic preference in America shifted from Greek Revival to Italianate. Gaineswood's sprawling, asymmetrical floor plan and lavish decorative detail brilliantly reflect that shift. The drawing room (ballroom) is highlighted by vis-à-vis mirrors, fluted Corinthian columns and pilasters, and a coffered ceiling with decoative Italianate plasterwork. The parlor and dining room have domed ceilings with windows added in 1860 to illuminate the home. Gaineswood is one of the few Greek Revivial homes that has Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns.

Some of that interior "lavish decorative detail" can be seen in photographs in the next part of this post. 

Whitfield came from North Carolina in 1842 and bought 480 acres in Marengo County from George Strother Gaines, a federal trade agent to Native Americans in Alabama and Mississippi. Gaines had built a cabin on the site in the 1820's. He also met on his land with Pushmataha, chief of the Choctaw Nation, to negotiate their removal to Indian Territory. 

Whitfield originally named his estate Marlmont, but renamed it after Gaines in 1856. Family tradition says the mansion was built around Gaines' original dog-trot log cabin. Between 1845 and 1863 slaves also dug a mile long canal to redirect rainwater and prevent flooding of the plantation. 

In 1861, the year Gaineswood was finally finished, Whitfield sold it to his son Bryan, a physician. The main exterior construction of stucco over brick and the fine interior woodwork were completed by both slaves and free African-Americans and travelling artisans. John Gibson, a Scottish-born craftsman, created the glass transoms depicting classical scenes. By that time the estate comprised 7200 acres, 235 slaves and produced hundreds of bales of cotton annually. Whitfield designed the home himself, getting many ideas from architectural books of the time. 

The home remained in the family until 1923 and in private hands until 1967, when it was sold to the state. Gaineswood opened to the public in 1975. The current furnishings are original to the house or appropriate to the period; many were donated by the Whitfield family. The Alabama Historical Commission currently manages the five-acre property.

Further comments are below some of the photos here. All photos are mine unless otherwise indicated.

This article examines the Whitfield family's move from North Carolina to Alabama:

Barrett, Kayla. "The Whitfields Move to Alabama: A Case Study in Westward Migration, 1825-1835." Alabama Review 48 (April 1995): 96-113

Part 2 of this post is here.

This view is what you see as you approach the house from the parking area. Some of that "lavish decorative detail" is already visible. 

Across the road from Gaineswood is this view. The area where the estate's pond with an island was located is now the campus of Demopolis Middle School. The pond was filled as much of the property was sold over the years. 

See the postcard below for a view in 1860. 

This 1938 pamphlet was written by Nathan Whitfield's grandson. He notes that the original kitchen "with its great fireplace" was located some sixty feet from the house. The acquisition of a stove led to placement of the kitchen in the basement, "and then it was found that without very serious objection a kitchen might be placed on the first floor level, and so become truly a part of the machinery of living."

Whitfield also remembers the store rooms and pantries full of good food such as "boxes of raisins from Spain" and the casks of brandied peaches and apples kept in the "still house."  

Gaineswood in the 1930's 

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives & History Digital Collections

A view of Gaineswood and the gazebo taken in 1939 by Francis B. Johnston as part of the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South. You can see more of Johnston's exterior and interior photos of the house here. 

A 1910 postcard from the Eagle Post Card View Company taken from an 1860  engraving by John Sartain. That engraving is included in the Whitfield pamphlet. 

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History Digital Collections

Nathan Bryan Whitfield [1799-1868]

From an engraving by John Sartain

Source: Wikipedia

A Visit to Demopolis

In March 2018 Dianne and I went to New Orleans to visit our son. On the way back to Pelham we took a detour and spent the night in Demopolis so we could visit the spectacular structure that is Gaineswood. I'll be doing a couple of posts on that house museum soon, but in this one I'm covering some other sights in the town.

Demopolis, the seat of Marengo County, was settled in 1817, the same year that Congress created the Alabama Territory. The first arrivals were French immigrants, who had fled to Philadelphia after a slave rebellion in Haiti. The U.S. government granted them 92,000 acres in Alabama if they would grow grapes and olives. This effort, which became known as the Vine and Olive Colony, ultimately failed but Demopolis survived to become a center of the cotton trade in the antebellum period. Today many beautiful homes and other buildings survive in the town. 

In a previous post I've discussed The Fighting Kentuckian a 1949 John Wayne film set in Demopolis during the "vine and olive colony" period. The town has also been the birthplace of several prominent people. Although he is associated with Birmingham, businessman A.G. Gaston was born in Demopolis. 

Playwright Lillian Hellman based The Little Foxes on her mother's Demopolis family and the play is set there. Alabama actress Tallulah Bankhead starred in the play on Broadway; Bette Davis got the role in the 1941 film version. Hellman's 1946 play Another Part of the Forest is a prequel of sorts to Foxes and is set in the fictional Alabama town of Bowden. That play was filmed in 1948. In 1949 Marc Blitzstein's opera based on The Little Foxes, Regina, premiered on Broadway. 

Two authors born in Demopolis are Wyatt Blassingame and James Haskins. In the 1930's and 1940's Blassingame was a prolific writer of fiction for the pulp magazines. In the 1950's as that market dried up, he began writing non-fiction books for young people. He died in 1985. Haskins, who died in 2005, wrote more than 100 books for adults and youth, many of them related to African-American history. 

Although she grew up in Mobile, contemporary novelist Michelle Richmond was also born in Demopolis. 

Demopolis and Marengo County have numerous properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places; town and county are both rich in historical sites. 

Further comments are below many of the photos. 

Heading toward Demopolis we passed through a bit of the Cuba community; the town was incorporated in 1890. A post office existed in the area from 1850, and two years later planter R.A. Clay moved to the area with 100 slaves. His plantation acreage later became the town. 

Several impressive old homes, churches and a museum are located in Cuba, but we did not get to visit any. 

Further church history can be found here. "Trinity is one of the finest examples of Victorian Gothic Church architecture in the United States."

Trinity Episcopal Church around 1940

Source: Alabama Mosaic

Bluff Hall was built in 1832 by Allen Glover using slave labor and overlooking the white limestone cliffs along the Tombigbee River. The residence, home to Glover's daughter Sarah and her husband Francis Lyon, was expanded n the 1840's and remained in private hands until 1967. At that time the Marengo County Historical Society purchased it and restored the structure to its 1850's glory. The society continues to operate Bluff Hall as a house museum. Unfortunately we did not get to tour it; perhaps next time. 

This building sits next to Bluff Hall. 

As far as I can determine the Demopolis Inn is not currently operating. 

Demopolis Inn building and further down that street

One of the many neat old homes in Demopolis

The Red Barn Restaurant has been operating since 1971 and has a very visible exterior. You can learn more about it at the Rural Southwest Alabama site.

The food was excellent!

One of Demopolis' most prominent Jewish businessmen was Julius Rosenbush, who arrived in the city in 1894. He founded the Rosenbush Furniture Company, which the family operated until 2002. The property was then donated to the Marengo County History and Archives Museum Foundation.  

Established in 1858, this Jewish congregation in Demopolis was the fourth one established in Alabama. The temple had about 150 members in 1929, but that number declined until it became inactive in the 1980's. In 1989 the title to this property was transferred to Trinity Episcopal Church which continues to maintain it. 

"[Rooster Hall] is one of the oldest buildings in Demopolis. It was built in 1843 by the Presbyterians of Demopolis using locally-made bricks. It served as their sanctuary until after the Civil War. During the reconstruction period, a garrison of Federal troops, stationed in Demopolis, moved the county seat from Linden, AL, and used this building for a courthouse. The building served as the Marengo County Courthouse through Reconstruction. The county seat returned to Linden in 1871 and the building was turned over to Demopolis city authorities. 

In 1876 the city leased the building to the Demopolis Opera Association. The Association rehabilitated the building for live performances and public speaking events. The Opera House featured mostly local talent but also featured talents from New York and New Orleans for special performances. The Opera House closed its doors in 1902. Since that time the building has served several other functions including city hall, a fire station, a meeting house and auditorium, voting station, and office building. This building is a contributing property to the Demopolis Public Square which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 29, 1975. Rooster Hall is located on the northeast corner of the Public Square at downtown Demopolis."

Quote Source: Rural Southwest Alabama

Attorney George Lyon began construction of the Greek Revival Lyon Hall in 1850. He was the nephew of Francis Lyon of Bluff Hall. Construction continued until 1853; then Lyon and his wife journeyed to New York City to find furnishings. Family occupied the house until 1996; it was donated to the Marengo County Historical Society the following year. 

Merchants Grocery Company building and Coca-Cola sign