Aberfoil Community
The town of Aberfoil was incorporated January 26, 1839, in then Macon County, with the first election for councillors conducted and managed by Lewis Stoudenmire, Charles G. Lynch, Thomas Scott, David Hudson, and A.J. and E.A. Jackson. Aberfoil was the first town incorporated within the present boundaries of Bullock County, and was one of three sites considered for the county seat in 1867. The Aberfoil post office was established with Alfred Spaulding appointed postmaster on September 6, 1837. The Aberfoil Male and Female Academy was incorporated as the community's first school on February 2, 1839, with Lewis Stoudenmire, Benjamin Scott, Samuel Johnson, James Larkin, Charles G. Lynch, Linson Keener and John McBearhall as trustees. Aberfoil Academy , with F.G. Thomas, James Larkins, A.Y. Frierson, Lewis Stoudenmire, Frederick Houghton as trustees, followed in 1843. Another Aberfoil Academy was incorporated in 1860, with Howell Peebles, John Allums, Simon Stinson and N.G. Owens as trustees. Aberfoil Public School was organized by Reverend C.H. Thornton in 1890, located next to the Elizabeth Missionary Baptist Church. Sponsored by the Bullock County Historical Society
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Aberfoil Community
Aberfoil community has been served by Lydia Baptist Church and Aberfoil Methodist Episcopal Church for the white population and Walton Chapel and Elizabeth Missionary Baptist Church for the African American population. Cemeteries in the community include Lydia Cemetery, Aberfoil Methodist Episcopal South Church Cemetery (Aberfoil Family Cemetery), Elizabeth Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery, and African Methodist Episcopal Church Cemetery. Several stores, a Masonic Lodge and a blacksmith shop served the community which thrived into the early 1900s. Dallas Stoudenmire, a native of Aberfoil, joined the Confederate army at age 16 and became a legendary lawman in the post-war West where he served as a Texas Ranger, Town Marshal of El Paso, and United States Deputy Marshal. Sponsored by the Bullock County Historical Society [2005: Hwy 29 and Co. Rd. 31 32.06841N 85.68721W]
Chunnenuggee Public Garden, 1847
The entrance gate to the Chunnenuggee Public Garden was located within this 90- X 120-foot strip. The Chunnenuggee Ridge Horticultural Society, organized on March 6, 1847, established the Garden in the same year. Now known as the Chunnenuggee Public Garden Club, it lays claim to being the oldest continuously existing garden club in the nation. The Society held an annual Chunnenuggee May Fair between 1848 and 1860, when the War Between the States interrupted the event. The circular garden house, summer houses, and a "Lover's Knot" (a maze of tall flowering shrubbery) once were part of the five acres planted with rare fruits, flowers, and shrubberies which attracted visitors throughout the South to the Fair. The Fair was revived as the Chunnenuggee Fair in Union Springs in 1980 by the Bullock County Historical Society. Listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on March 5, 1976.
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Across the road from the Garden site is the old Powell home, known as "Old Field." Dr. Norborne Berkley Powell, who deeded the land for the Garden for $1.00, came from Virginia to Georgia and then to Alabama in 1838. He bought several thousand acres originally occupied by Creek Indians who called the area "TCHA-NA-NAGHI," meaning "long, high ridge." Slave carpenters and bricklayers from his plantation built his home from natural resources in the area. In 1844 the Greek Revival home was completed on the site of a former Indian war council lodge. Dr. Powell's likeness was imprinted on a window pane by lightning during a storm. Author Augusta Wilson dramatized this event in a novel entitled At the Mercy of Tiberius, where lightning photography solved a mystery. The glass pane is preserved in the Alabama Department of Archives & History in Montgomery. [2006:Co. Rd. 40 east of Union Springs 32.15872N 85.63852W]
First Baptist Missionary Church 1875
The Macedonia Baptist Church, located between the communities of Midway and Mt. Coney, was contructed by freedmen after the American Civil War, replacing the brush arbors used by the area's antebellum slaves as sites for religious worship. Four seperate congregations grew out of the original church: Antioch Baptist Church; Oak Grove Baptist Church; Mt. Coney Baptist Church; and Second Baptist Church of Midway. First organized in 1875, Second Baptist was built on a one-acre site officially deeded to the church by Taylor N. Cox and wife, M.C. Cox, on April 9, 1885. The original architecture was of the front gable with central tower type. Changes included additional rooms and the enclosing of the vestibule. Church founders included Warren Williams, John Curry, Alfred Boxer Sr., Ed Curry, Aaron Hamilton, Bob Walker, Aaron Jordan, Jack Christian, and Susie Christian, with Donna Pruitt serving as first secretary. Rev. J.H. Smith was pastor in 1910 when the church's name was changed to First Baptist Missionary Church. In 1938, its building began to be used as a site for classes and commencement programs for old Merritt Junior High School. During the 1960s, First Baptist was an important site for African American voter registration and other Civil Rights-related activities. The church also played a significant role in the development of the Mt. Hebron Baptist Convention and the Missionary Baptist Association. As the only black Baptist church in Midway, First Baptist has been the site for conversions, marriages, funerals, religious conventions, and community events throughout its history. Placed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage, December 4, 1992. [2000: Old Try Rd. at School Street, Midway 32.07525N 85.52906W]
Fitzpatrick United Methodist Church (The Church of the Seven Sisters) 1858
Lacking an established church nearby, pioneer families of the Fitzpatrick community into the mid-19th century took turns hosting worship services in their homes on Sunday mornings. "The Church of the Seven Sisters" was established in 1858 by seven women of the community - Mrs. Phillips Bernard Baldwin (Martha Ann Thompson), Mrs. David Graves Fitzpatrick (Sara Ann Hooks), Mrs. John Campbell (Catherine Celia Hooks) Mrs. William Cicero Hufham (Nancy Henry Gholston), Mrs. Gordon Sanford Bunkley (Lucinda Morris Keene), Mrs. John William Templeton Reid (Celia Julia Fitzpatrick) and Mrs. Robert F. Ligon. Three of the "sisters" were Methodist, two were Baptist, one was Presbyterian, and one an Episcopalian, so it was founded as a Methodist Church. Albert G. Wray deeded one-and-one-half acres for the original building for one dollar. After the Montgomery and Eufaula railroad was built through Fitzpatrick in the 1870s, the church building was moved here from its nearby site. Placed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage, 1978. [2001: Fitzpatrick Rd., Fitzpatrick 32.21791N 85.88867W]
Indian Treaty Boundary Line
The treaty of Fort Jackson on August 9,1814, by Major General Andrew Jackson on behalf of the President of the United States of America and the Chiefs, Deputies and Warriors of the Creek Nation, established a boundary line between the Mississippi Territory and the Creek Nation. The line began a point ten miles from the mouth of the Ofucshee Creek directly to the mouth of the Summochico Creek on the Chatahouchie River. The Creek Treaty of Washington, signed on March 24, 1832, ceded the Indian Boundary Line ran across present-day Bullock County from northeast of Mitchell Station, Alabama, to southeast of Pine Grove, Alabama. [1998: US Hwy 82 W at Greenwood Ave., Union Springs 32.13763N 85.72649W]
Log Cabin Museum
Early settlers of this area cleared land and built their first homes of logs in the early 1830's. This cabin was built by Reuben Rice Kirkland (1829-1915) about 1850. He and his first wife had ten children while living in the log home. At one time an additional bedroom and chimney were on the right side, and the back porch was closed in for cooking and eating. A small log kitchen stood a few feet from the back and was later converted to a smoke house. The milk house beside the well was on stilts to protect butter and milk from animals. In 1981, the Bullock County Historical Society moved the cabin into Union Springs from its original site at Stills Cross Roads in southern Bullock County and restored it as a museum.
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Old City Cemetery (The Confederate Cemetery)
Micajah Norfleet Eley donated land in 1849 for the Baptist Church and an adjoining public cemetery. The oldest cemetery in Union Springs, it served the city for 35 years. The Confederate Monument at the center of the cemetery was unveiled at the intersection of Prairie and Hardaway Streets on March 29, 1895 by the Ladies Memorial Association. In 1973, it was moved to its present location. Locally known as the Confederate Cemetery, it includes the tombstones of some twenty-two Confederate soldiers. Below the Confederate soldiers' grave sites is a marker which reads, "Union Prisoners of War, 1861-1865, Victims of Plague." [1997: Hwy. 82 W in Union Springs 32.14344N 85.71724W]
Midway Baptist Church
Organized July 28, 1852 Midway, a part of Barbour County in the mid-19th century, was also known as Five Points, a small community of a handful of dwellings, two stores, and a Methodist church of logs. In this Methodist church, Joel Willis, J.M. Thornton, Robert G. Hall, M.B. Johnston, W.J. Coleman, and Lorenzo Faulk met in the summer of 1852 to organize the Baptist Church of Five Points. Articles of Faith and Decorum were approved August 31 and Joel Sims was called as the first pastor. By April 1855, the Five Points church was being referred to in its own records as the Baptist Church of Midway. The southwest corner of Feagin's field was selected as a building site in December 1852 and, in February 1853, a frame structure with glass windows, but no steeple, was dedicated. A steeple and bell were added to the building in 1859 and gas lamps replaced candles in 1869. In 1872 the Church was rebuilt with the original materials at hand. Renovations in 1902 and 1930 added stained glass windows, Sunday School rooms, restrooms, and a kitchen but the structure has retained some of its original building materials and rests upon its original site. The Church has been actively associated with other congregations since its beginnings in the Salem Association of Barbour County to the Bullock Centennial Association of the present. It has been associated with the Baptist State Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention since early in its history. [2002: Main St., Midway 32.08046N 85.51878W]
Mt. Hilliard Methodist Church
Organized 1835. Founded by settlers from Virginia, Georgia, and Carolinas. Building erected 1856. It was the central feature of the village of Mount Hilliard. Named in honor of Henry W. Hilliard-who debated William L. Yancey in the 1850's. Revivals held at church inspired ministers who went west to establish churches and colleges in Texas. Marker erected by Friends of Mt. Hilliard. [Co. Rd. 14 between Hook's Crossroads and High Ridge 32.06059N 85.86868W]
Old Merritt School Midway Community Center
Margaret Elizabeth Merritt of Midway sold two acres for $5 to the state of Alabama in 1921 as a site for an elementary school for African-American children. Built in 1922 with matching Rosenwald funds, the Midway Colored Public School featured oak and pine construction and two classrooms divided by a partition. The building is one of the few surviving of the more than 5,000 rural black schools built with contributions from the Julius Rosenwald Fund. Enlarged twice, then renovated in 1978, it is now used for community activities. Added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage, November 2, 1990 and to the National Register of Historic Places, February 20, 1998. [1998: Old Troy Rd. at School St., Midway 32.07545N 85.52978W]
Perote, Bullock County
This community, settled during the mid-1830s, was first called Fulford's Cross Roads, then Missouri Cross Roads when a post office was established here in 1846. The name Perote, adopted in 1850, was suggested by veterans returning from the Mexican War (1846-48), who remembered a citadel in Mexico by that name. Incorporation followed in 1858. Early settlers in the area, who came primarily from the Carolinas and Georgia, included the following families: Sellers, Crossley, Blue, Locke, Peach, Hixon, Culver, Johnson, Adair, Ardis, McCall, Rumph, Brabham, Miles, Cameron, Starke, Wilson, Walker and Ivey. Methodist and Baptist churches were among the first structures in the community, around which much of the social life centered, including "protracted meetings" - revivals.
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Perote, Bullock County Perote grew rapidly in the 1850s so that by 1860 the community was thriving with several doctors, stores, a carriage factory, a Masonic lodge, and a school. At the beginning of the War Between the States (1861-65), the school numbered about 150 students. Many of the young men from the school served in the Perote Guards, organized in 1859 as war clouds gathered. They went off to war as part of the 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment with uniforms and a flag handmade by the women they left behind. The community's fortunes fell following the war as cotton cultivation, the area's traditional leading economic pursuit, receded in importance. By-passed by the railroad and experiencing several disastrous fires, Perote suffered a steady decline in business activity and population. [2004: Hwy 29 at Co. Rd. 8 31.94717N 85.70555W ]
St. James C. M. E. Church
Railroad Street Midway, Alabama St. James Christian Methodist Episcopal Church was founded by Reverend Jack McMillan, a former slave of Midway's Daniel McMillan. Initially meeting outdoors under a brush arbor, ex-slaves and their children constructed a wood-frame church building soon after this lot was purchased in December 1882. A storm subsequently damaged the building which was rebuilt in 1896. Gable-roofed, the structure's original steeple church bell was enclosed in a cupola. Additional rooms have been added and the main entrance enclosed. Placed on the Alabama Register of the Landmarks and Heritage, December 19, 1991. [1998: Railroad St., Midway 32.07075N 85.52046W]
Samuel Sellers Cemetery
Samuel Sellers (1788-1857) of North Carolina arrived with his large family at Three Notch Road on January 29, 1835. Here, in what was then the Missouri Beat, Pike County, the first post office in the area was established, 2.5 miles west of present-day Perote, Bullock County. Sellers served as Postmaster between 1846-1850. Sellers' original home was located on land near this cemetery. Placed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage by the Alabama Historical Commission, November 2, 1976. [2000: Co. Rd. 19 southeast of Blue's Old Stand 31.96828N 85.74322W]
Sardis Baptist Church, Cemetery, and School
Settlers from the Edgefield District, South Carolina, organized the Sardis Baptist Church on June 10, 1837. The first building, a log cabin, was constructed in 1841 after John M. and his wife Amy Youngblood Dozier deeded four and one-half acres to the church for a building and cemetery. The present building, constructed in the 1850s, is an exceptionally fine example of rural antebellum church architecture of Greek Revival style. Relatively unaltered since construction, its four columns support a full entablature and low-pitched roof. Each of the two primary entrances has double-paneled doors trimmed with unadorned molding, and each side of the building has four tall, shuttered, 18-light windows. The building was repaired in 1940-41 and 1992-93. As membership declined, Sunday afternoon services were conducted by visiting Methodist ministers from Union Springs. The church became inactive in the early 1950s, but was the setting for a wedding in 1993. Added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage in 1992, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
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Sardis Baptist Church, Cemetery, and School
In the cemetery, the oldest tombstone bears the name of Moses E. Martin, died May 18, 1848. Part of the cemetery nearest the church served the Negro community during the early years. As the need arose for more space, William Andrew Martin and his wife Nancy Strom Martin, who had bought the adjoining land from the Doziers in 1860, allowed the church to extend the cemetery southward onto their property. Sardis School, a community school, was located on the church property across the highway from the church on the corner of Highway 223 and County Road 22. Newspaper articles indicate the school was operating in 1861 and 1870. The old Sardis School building was subsequently moved east on County Road 22, where it became, as it remains today, the living room of the Livingston Paulk home. In 1867, the Buena Vista Masonic Lodge #169 was located just north of the church property. [Ala. Hwy 223 at Co. Rd. 8 32.08890N 85.76259W]
Three Notch Road
Built by U.S. Army engineers over the summer of 1824, Three Notch Road has served as Bullock County’s major transportation route throughout its history. It was constructed to facilitate military communication between Pensacola in Florida and Ft. Mitchell in Alabama near the Georgia border. The 233-mile path through a virtual wilderness was known as Road No. 6 in official reports, but was known and named locally for the distinctive horizontal notches blazed into trees by advancing surveyors as they marked the route for the builders who followed. Capt. Daniel Burch oversaw construction of the road which was wide enough to allow “carriages, carts, wagons, &c.” and included “substantial wooden bridges” over those streams which were not so wide as to require ferries to cross. Sponsored by the Bullock County Historical Society [2011: 2 markers, 1 at Three Notch, the other at Blue’s Old Stand]
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Three Notch Road
Three Notch Road was the major thoroughfare for those coming from Georgia into present-day Bullock County when eastern Alabama was opened to American settlement with the removal of the Indians. The road entered the county from the north near Guerryton, crossed the Chunnenuggee Ridge at Enon, and continued south to Ft. Watson, as the community of Three Notch was named before the Central of Georgia Railroad came through. From there the road continued southwest through the communities of Ox Level (by Mallard Chapel), Indian Creek, Blues Old Stand, and Sellers Crossroads before exiting the county on present-day Bullock County Road 19, near the Sandfield community in Pike County. Sponsored by the Bullock County Historical Society
Trinity Episcopal Church/Red Door Theater
Trinity Episcopal Church was established in Union Springs by Rev. DeBerniere Waddell in 1872 as a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama with seventeen communicants and an annual budget of $412.50. Until 1879 services were held monthly in the County Courthouse or in churches of other denominations. In 1879 the congregation purchased a small wooden store building diagonally across Prairie Street from this site. Remodeled as a church, services were held there until completion of the present church. The current building was designed by a local high school senior, Richard Kennon Perry, who went on to become a notable architect. Erected on a lot provided by the Foster family, the Gothic-revival building features stained glass windows and dual front entrances appropriate for the interior plans popular in southern churches built between 1880 and 1920. The marble cornerstone indicates the church was completed and dedicated to God in 1909. Sponsored by the Bullock County Historical Society
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Red Door Theater/Trinity Episcopal Church
The Church had seventeen communicants in 1925; in 1993 there were fewer than eleven. Negotiations with the Diocese led to transfer the ownership of the building to the City of Union Springs, in exchange for two acres of land donated by individuals. The service of Desanctification of a Consecrated Building was performed by the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama on August 28, 2002 when the Diocese removed the lectern and bishop's chair and placed them in other churches. Under the auspices of the Tourism Council of Bullock County, the building was renamed the Red Door Theater. The first community event held here was a group reading from the script of the play "Conecuh People." The play, presented four times during April 2004, featured the lives of people in Bullock County. The Church building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and, in 1989, was designated as a historic site by the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. Sponsored by the Bullock County Historical Society [2005: Blackmon at Praire Streets, Union Springs 32.14535N 85.71618W]