Woodlands (Gosport, Alabama)

Last updated
Woodlands
Woodlands Plantation 02.JPG
USA Alabama location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
LocationOff U.S. 84, Gosport, Alabama
Coordinates 31°35′3″N87°34′24″W / 31.58417°N 87.57333°W / 31.58417; -87.57333
Area1 acre (0.40 ha)
Built1840
Architectural styleGreek Revival, Creole
NRHP reference No. 80000683 [1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPApril 28, 1980
Designated ARLHJanuary 29, 1980 [2]

Woodlands, also known as the Frederick Blount Plantation, is a historic plantation house in Gosport, Alabama, United States. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 28, 1980, due to its architectural significance. [1]

Contents

Background

The house was built by Frederick Spaight Blount in 1840. Blount was born on November 13, 1808, in North Carolina. He and his half-brother, James W. Bryan, entered into a partnership in 1841, by which Bryan furnished slaves for Woodlands. Blount was noted to be a lawyer in Gosport in 1845. The partnership with his half-brother had soured by 1848, with Bryan attempting to sell the slaves to Alfred Hatch of Greensboro. [3] By the time of the 1850 United States Census he and his wife, Emily James, were living at the plantation with three children and eighteen slaves. The family relocated to Mobile a few years later, where Blount resumed his law practice. [4]

A great scandal, known nationwide at the time, arose in 1858 when Frederick S. Blount accused Henri Arnous de Rivière, a French Army officer, of abducting his daughter, Miss Emily J. Blount, and wife, Mrs. Emily James Blount, and attempting to flee with them to Havana. Blount had allowed the engagement of his daughter to Rivière, but after discovering a supposed previous marriage broke the engagement and forbade Henri Rivière contact with her. [5] Rivière was apprehended on July 4, 1858, at the Hotel Napoleon in Hoboken, New Jersey, but he and Blount's daughter escaped prior to the trial. [6] [7]

The affair was published in newspapers throughout the South, and in TheNew York Times. [5] [6] [7] The Blount family was later reunited and were again living in Mobile in 1860. However, Rivière and Miss Blount did eventually marry and have children, living in France. Frederick Blount himself was living in Paris by 1872.

Architecture

Woodlands is a wood-frame example of what is known regionally as a Carolina cottage, a form that is very similar in outward appearance to that of a Creole cottage. This form is always one-and-a-half stories with side-gables, with the main roof covering any porches. [8]

The house also features fine Greek Revival detailing, including eight fluted Doric columns supporting the front porch. The front entrance door, centered in the five-bay facade, is surrounded by sidelights and surmounted by a transom light, with these flanked by pilasters and crowned with a simple entablature. [1] [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Boykin Chesnut</span> American Confederacy Civil War diarist (1823–1886)

Mary Boykin Chesnut was an American writer noted for a book published as her Civil War diary, a "vivid picture of a society in the throes of its life-and-death struggle." She described the war from within her upper-class circles of Southern slaveowner society, but encompassed all classes in her book. She was married to James Chesnut, Jr., a lawyer who served as a United States senator and officer in the Confederate States Army.

Woodlands may back refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Pinckney National Historic Site</span> National Historic Site of the United States

The Charles Pinckney National Historic Site is a unit of the United States National Park Service, preserving a portion of Charles Pinckney's Snee Farm plantation and country retreat. The site is located at 1254 Long Point Road, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Pinckney (1757-1824) was a member of a prominent political family in South Carolina. He fought in the American Revolutionary War, was held for a period as prisoner in the North, and returned to the state in 1783. Pinckney, a Founding Father of the United States, served as a delegate to the constitutional convention where he contributed to drafting the United States Constitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plantation house</span> Main house of a plantation

A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and expensive architectural works today, though most were more utilitarian, working farmhouses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waveland State Historic Site</span> United States historic place

Waveland State Historic Site, also known as the Joseph Bryan House, in Lexington, Kentucky is the site of a Greek Revival home and 10 acres now maintained and operated as part of the Kentucky state park system. It was the home of the Joseph Bryan family, their descendants and the people they enslaved in the nineteenth century. Bryan's father William had befriended Daniel Boone and they migrated west through the Cumberland Gap.

Goodwood Plantation was a mid-sized forced-labor farm that grew cotton on about 1,675 acres (7 km2) in central Leon County, Florida. It is located at 1600 Miccosukee Road. The plantation was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on June 30, 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miles Brewton House</span> Historic house in South Carolina, United States

The Miles Brewton House is a National Historic Landmark residential complex located in Charleston, South Carolina. It is one of the finest examples of a double house in Charleston, designed on principles articulated by Andrea Palladio. Located on two acres, its extensive collection of dependencies makes it one of the most complete Georgian townhouse complexes in America. The house was built ca. 1765-1769 for Miles Brewton, a wealthy slave trader and planter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaineswood</span> Historic house in Alabama, United States

Gaineswood is a plantation house in Demopolis, Alabama, United States. It is the grandest plantation house ever built in Marengo County and is one of the most significant remaining examples of Greek Revival architecture in Alabama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cedar Grove Plantation</span> Historic house in Alabama, United States

Cedar Grove Plantation, also known as the Charles Walker House, is a Greek Revival plantation house located near Faunsdale, Marengo County, Alabama. It is notable in having been the residence of Nicola Marschall for a brief period while the Walker family owned the property. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 13 July 1993 as a part of the Plantation Houses of the Alabama Canebrake and Their Associated Outbuildings Multiple Property Submission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashe Cottage</span> Historic house in Alabama, United States

Ashe Cottage, also known as the Ely House, is a historic Carpenter Gothic house in Demopolis, Alabama. It was built in 1832 and expanded and remodeled in the Gothic Revival style in 1858 by William Cincinnatus Ashe, a physician from North Carolina. The cottage is a 1+12-story wood-frame building, the front elevation features two semi-octagonal gabled front bays with a one-story porch inset between them. The gables and porch are trimmed with bargeboards in a design taken from Samuel Sloan's plan for "An Old English Cottage" in his 1852 publication, The Model Architect. The house is one of only about twenty remaining residential examples of Gothic Revival architecture remaining in the state. Other historic Gothic Revival residences in the area include Waldwic in Gallion and Fairhope Plantation in Uniontown. Ashe Cottage was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on August 22, 1975, and to the National Register of Historic Places on 19 October 1978.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site</span>

Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site is a historic site in Union County, South Carolina, that preserves the home of William H. Gist (1807–1874), the 68th governor of South Carolina. Gist helped instigate a Secession Convention in South Carolina, which led to the creation of the Ordinance of Secession that preceded the Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose Hill Plantation House</span> Historic house in South Carolina, United States

Rose Hill Plantation House is an historic Carpenter Gothic house located on US 278 in Bluffton, Beaufort County, South Carolina. It was begun in 1858 for Dr. John Kirk and Caroline Kerk, his wife, but construction was interrupted by the Civil War and not resumed until after World War II when it was renovated and finished by architect Willis Irvin for John Sturgeon and Florence Sturgeon, his wife. On May 19, 1983, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It preserves the antebellum plantation home of Dr. & Mrs. John William (1803-1868) & Caroline (1815-1864) Kirk, a wealthy planter and physician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cedar Crest (Faunsdale, Alabama)</span> Historic house in Alabama, United States

Cedar Crest, also known as Cedar Crest Farms, is a Greek Revival plantation house located near Faunsdale, Alabama. It was built for Kimbrough Cassels Dubose in 1850 by Albert Prince, a slave. Dubose, born in Darlington District, South Carolina was educated at the preparatory school of Prof. Stafford who later was of the faculty of the University of Alabama. His wife was Miss Elizabeth Boykin Witherspoon also of Darlington District, South Carolina, and they had seven sons and four daughters: John Witherspoon, James Henry, Jr., Eugene, Nicholas William, Francis Marion, Lemuel Benton and Edwin Dargan-the daughters Louisa, Rosalie, Augusta and Adele. The plantation was worked by the forced labor of as many as 130 enslaved persons. The house is one-and-a-half stories with side gables, but has been simplified. It originally had side wings, with adjoining porches across the front. These were removed in 1939, leaving the small central front portico. Another historic plantation house, Altwood, was moved from a nearby location to the Cedar Crest grounds in 1988. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 5, 1993, as a part of the Plantation Houses of the Alabama Canebrake and Their Associated Outbuildings Multiple Property Submission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roseland Plantation</span> Historic house in Alabama, United States

Roseland Plantation is a historic plantation complex site in Faunsdale, Alabama. The site is situated on a low hill at the end of a long driveway on the overgrown estate. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 20, 1994, as a part of the Plantation Houses of the Alabama Canebrake and Their Associated Outbuildings Multiple Property Submission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William King Beck House</span> Historic house in Alabama, United States

The William King Beck House, also known as River Bluff Plantation, is a historic plantation house on the Alabama River near Camden, Alabama. The main house was built in 1845 for William King Beck and is attributed to architect Alexander J. Bragg. William King Beck was an attorney from North Carolina who migrated to Wilcox County in the 1820s. He was the nephew of William Rufus King, the 13th Vice President of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosemount (Forkland, Alabama)</span> Historic house in Alabama, United States

Rosemount is a historic plantation house near Forkland, Alabama. The Greek Revival style house was built in stages between 1832 and the 1850s by the Glover family. The house has been called the "Grand Mansion of Alabama." The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 27, 1971. The Glover family enslaved over 300 people from 1830 until 1860.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Millwood (Richland County, South Carolina)</span> Historic house in South Carolina, United States

Millwood is the site and ruins of an antebellum plantation house at 6100 Garner's Ferry Road, Columbia, South Carolina. Owned by Colonel Wade Hampton II and his wife Ann Fitzsimmons Hampton, it was the boyhood home of their first son Wade Hampton III and other children. He later became a Confederate general and later, South Carolina governor, and U.S. Senator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harrietta Plantation</span> Historic house in South Carolina, United States

Harrieta Plantation is a plantation about 5 mi (8 km) east of McClellanville in Charleston County, South Carolina. It is located off US Highway 17 near the Santee River, adjacent to the Wedge Plantation and just south of Fairfield Plantation. The plantation house was built around 1807 and was named to the National Register of Historic Places on September 18, 1975.

Gosport is an unincorporated community in Clarke County, Alabama, United States. Gosport is also close to the unincorporated town of Whatley, the two are usually confused with one another, and sometimes thought as the same place.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Idlewild (Talladega County, Alabama)</span> Historic house in Alabama, United States

Idlewild is a historic plantation house and historic district just east of Talladega, Alabama, United States. The property was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage and the National Register of Historic Places in 1993, due to its architectural significance.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. "ALABAMA REGISTER OF LANDMARKS & HERITAGE" (PDF). ahc.alabama.gov. Retrieved 31 January 2024.
  3. "Bryan Family Papers, 1704-1940". University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
  4. Ball, Timothy Horton (1882). A Glance into the Great South-East, or Clarke County, Alabama, and its surroundings, from 1540 to 1877. Grove Hill, Alabama. p. 211. OCLC   556968920.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. 1 2 "A Frenchman in Difficulties-The Arrest of Capt. De Riviere" (PDF). New York Times. July 6, 1858. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
  6. 1 2 "Capt. de Riviere Arrested at Hoboken-Examination Postponed till Thursday-Present Aspect of the Case" (PDF). New York Times. July 7, 1858. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
  7. 1 2 "The De Riviere Scandal" (PDF). New York Times. July 13, 1858. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
  8. 1 2 "Clarke County MPS". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. Retrieved March 3, 2011.