Alabama Confederate Soldiers Home
Encyclopedia
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
by the state of Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, located in what is now Confederate Memorial Park in Mountain Creek
Mountain Creek, Alabama
Mountain Creek is an unincorporated community in southeastern Chilton County, Alabama, United States.-Confederate Memorial Park:It was the site of the Alabama Confederate Soldiers Home from 1902 to 1939, which is now the Confederate Memorial Park. The park has a museum, research facility, historic...
in Chilton County, Alabama
Chilton County, Alabama
-2010:Whereas according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau:*84.1% White*9.7% Black*0.4% Native American*0.3% Asian*0.0% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander*1.2% Two or more races*7.8% Hispanic or Latino -2000:...
.
It was founded in 1901 by former Confederate veteran Jefferson Manly Falkner, a lawyer from Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...
. He wished to provide a home for former Confederate veterans and their wives and widows who could no longer support themselves even with pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
s. (Originally, the wives had to have their Confederate husbands be alive and living at the homes, but in 1915 the rules were changed to permit widows). He donated 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) in 1902 for the purpose of housing such residents in Mountain Creek, a summer resort area. The state government took control of the operations at the home in 1903. It was the only official home for Confederate veterans in Alabama.
The home included a small hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
, a dairy barn, mess hall, and nineteen domiciles, with a then-modern sewage systems. At its height between 1914 and 1918, 91 veterans and nineteen widows of such veterans lived at the home. A total of 650–800 individuals lived at the home at one time or another, most from Alabama, but some had lived in other states during the war, and came to Alabama after the war. The last veteran in the home died in 1934. The home closed in October 1939, with the five widows left at the home moved south to a home in Montgomery, where they could receive better care.
The Mountain Creek Baptist Church first met at the Home in 1908, spending its first two years there. Even though the church moved out, the earliest surviving church records show many of the Confederate veterans still going to the church in the 1920s.
The grounds include two cemeteries, with 313 graves. A museum with relics from the war and the home is on the site. Also at the site is a Methodist church and the Mountain Creek Post Office. The home's cemetery rosters, insurance papers, and superintendent reports are available at the Alabama Dept. of Archives and History in Montgomery.
See also
- Alabama in the American Civil War
- Pewee Valley Confederate CemeteryPewee Valley Confederate CemeteryPewee Valley Confederate Cemetery is the site of the old Kentucky Confederate Home. The cemetery is not only on the National Register of Historic Places, but an individual monument within it, the Confederate Memorial in Pewee Valley, is separately on it as part of the Civil War Monuments of...
— site of the Kentucky Confederate Home, in Oldham County, KentuckyOldham County, KentuckyAs of the census of 2000, there were 46,178 people, 14,856 households, and 12,196 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 15,541 housing units at an average density of...