Sturdivant Hall
Encyclopedia
Sturdivant Hall, also known as the Watts-Parkman-Gillman Home, is a historic Greek Revival
mansion and house museum in Selma
, Alabama
, United States
. Completed in 1856, it was designed by Thomas Helm Lee for Colonel Edward T. Watts. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places
on January 18, 1973, due to its architectural significance. Edward Vason Jones
, known for his architectural work on the interiors at the White House
during the 1960s and 70s, called it one of the finest Greek Revival antebellum
mansions in the Southeast
.
. The house was purchased from Watts by John McGee Parkman, a local banker, for the sum of $65,000 on February 12, 1864. Following the end of the American Civil War
, Parkman was made president of the First National Bank of Selma. The bank engaged in cotton speculation and accumulated huge losses. The military governor of Alabama, Wager Swayne
, had his Reconstruction authorities take possession of the bank and arrest Parkman. He was imprisoned at the former Castle Morgan
in Cahaba
. Assisted by his friends, Parkman attempted to escape from the prison on May 23, 1867, but was killed.
The house was sold at auction for $12,500 in January 1870 to Emile Gillman, a prominent Selma merchant. The Gillman family owned the house until 1957, when it was sold to the City of Selma for $75,000. A large share of the money for buying the house came through a $50,000 bequest from the estate of Robert Daniel Sturdivant, with a provision for setting up a museum in the city. The mansion was turned into a house museum after the purchase and named in honor of Sturdivant. The property continues to be maintained into the present day by the City of Selma, Dallas County
, and the Sturdivant Museum Association.
ed to give the appearance of ashlar
. The front facade features a monumentally scaled hexastyle portico utilizing 30 feet (9.1 m)-tall Corinthian
columns. The front portico is accessed from the second floor by a cantilever
ed balcony
with an intricate cast-iron
railing. Identical front doorways on both levels feature elaborate Greek Revival door surrounds with full Corinthian columns to each side of the door.
The side elevations of the house feature a small cantilevered balcony on one side and a wide first floor porch surmounted by another balcony on the other. Both make use of elaborate cast-iron structural and decorative elements. The rear elevation is dominated by a monumental distyle in antis portico with two Doric
columns. A kitchen, smokehouse and two-story servants' quarters are set at right angle
s to the rear portico, forming a semi-enclosed courtyard to the rear of the house. A low pyramidal hipped roof
covers the main block of the house, as well as the front and rear porticoes. It is crowned by a small cupola
.
The interiors of Sturdivant Hall reflect the growing taste for opulence in the United States during the 1850s. The first floor has elaborate plasterwork
and millwork
throughout, with the drawing room and ladies parlor being the most detailed. They both feature door surrounds with Corinthian columns and are ringed by paneled pilaster
s, topped by plaster cornice
s. The main entrance for the first floor enters a L-shaped front hall, with a cantilevered staircase in the side portion of the hall. Other rooms on the first floor are the dining room, gentleman's parlor, and the warming room. The second floor houses a T-shaped hall and four bedrooms. From there, another cantilevered stair leads to an attic-level landing. From this landing a spiral stair winds around a central pole up to the cupola.
associated with it. Sturdivant Hall is featured in a short story by Kathryn Tucker Windham
, in her 13 Alabama ghosts and Jeffrey
. The story, “The Return of the Ruined Banker”, involves John Parkman and the purported return of his ghost to the house after his death.
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
mansion and house museum in Selma
Selma, Alabama
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama, United States, located on the banks of the Alabama River. The population was 20,512 at the 2000 census....
, 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...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Completed in 1856, it was designed by Thomas Helm Lee for Colonel Edward T. Watts. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
on January 18, 1973, due to its architectural significance. Edward Vason Jones
Edward Vason Jones
Edward Vason Jones , a neoclassical architect and member of the Georgia School of Classicism, began his career in 1936 with the design and construction of the Gillionville Plantation near his hometown of Albany, Georgia...
, known for his architectural work on the interiors at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
during the 1960s and 70s, called it one of the finest Greek Revival antebellum
Antebellum architecture
Antebellum architecture is a term used to describe the characteristic neoclassical architectural style of the Southern United States, especially the Old South, from after the birth of the United States in the American Revolution, to the start of the American Civil War...
mansions in the Southeast
Southeastern United States
The Southeastern United States, colloquially referred to as the Southeast, is the eastern portion of the Southern United States. It is one of the most populous regions in the United States of America....
.
History
Construction of what is now known as Sturdivant Hall began in 1852, but was not completely finished until 1856. Following completion, Edward Watts and his family lived in the house until 1864, when the house was sold and the family moved to TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. The house was purchased from Watts by John McGee Parkman, a local banker, for the sum of $65,000 on February 12, 1864. Following the end of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, Parkman was made president of the First National Bank of Selma. The bank engaged in cotton speculation and accumulated huge losses. The military governor of Alabama, Wager Swayne
Wager Swayne
Wager Swayne was a Union Army general during the American Civil War who received America's highest military decoration the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Second Battle of Corinth...
, had his Reconstruction authorities take possession of the bank and arrest Parkman. He was imprisoned at the former Castle Morgan
Cahaba Prison
Cahaba Prison, also known as Castle Morgan, was a prisoner of war camp in Alabama where the Confederacy held captive Union soldiers during the American Civil War. The prison was located in the small Alabama town of Cahaba, at the confluence of the Alabama and Cahaba Rivers, not far from...
in Cahaba
Cahaba, Alabama
Cahaba, also spelled Cahawba, was the first permanent state capital of Alabama from 1820 to 1825. It is now a ghost town and state historic site. The site is located in Dallas County, southwest of Selma.-Capital:...
. Assisted by his friends, Parkman attempted to escape from the prison on May 23, 1867, but was killed.
The house was sold at auction for $12,500 in January 1870 to Emile Gillman, a prominent Selma merchant. The Gillman family owned the house until 1957, when it was sold to the City of Selma for $75,000. A large share of the money for buying the house came through a $50,000 bequest from the estate of Robert Daniel Sturdivant, with a provision for setting up a museum in the city. The mansion was turned into a house museum after the purchase and named in honor of Sturdivant. The property continues to be maintained into the present day by the City of Selma, Dallas County
Dallas County, Alabama
Dallas County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. Its name is in honor of United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander J. Dallas. The county seat is Selma.- History :...
, and the Sturdivant Museum Association.
Architecture
The house is a two-story brick structure, stuccoStucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
ed to give the appearance of ashlar
Ashlar
Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...
. The front facade features a monumentally scaled hexastyle portico utilizing 30 feet (9.1 m)-tall Corinthian
Corinthian order
The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...
columns. The front portico is accessed from the second floor by a cantilever
Cantilever
A cantilever is a beam anchored at only one end. The beam carries the load to the support where it is resisted by moment and shear stress. Cantilever construction allows for overhanging structures without external bracing. Cantilevers can also be constructed with trusses or slabs.This is in...
ed balcony
Balcony
Balcony , a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade.-Types:The traditional Maltese balcony is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a...
with an intricate cast-iron
Cast-iron architecture
Cast-iron architecture is a form of architecture where cast iron plays a central role. It was a prominent style in the Industrial Revolution era when cast iron was relatively cheap and modern steel had not yet been developed.-Structural use:...
railing. Identical front doorways on both levels feature elaborate Greek Revival door surrounds with full Corinthian columns to each side of the door.
The side elevations of the house feature a small cantilevered balcony on one side and a wide first floor porch surmounted by another balcony on the other. Both make use of elaborate cast-iron structural and decorative elements. The rear elevation is dominated by a monumental distyle in antis portico with two Doric
Doric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
columns. A kitchen, smokehouse and two-story servants' quarters are set at right angle
Right angle
In geometry and trigonometry, a right angle is an angle that bisects the angle formed by two halves of a straight line. More precisely, if a ray is placed so that its endpoint is on a line and the adjacent angles are equal, then they are right angles...
s to the rear portico, forming a semi-enclosed courtyard to the rear of the house. A low pyramidal hipped roof
Hip roof
A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...
covers the main block of the house, as well as the front and rear porticoes. It is crowned by a small cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
.
The interiors of Sturdivant Hall reflect the growing taste for opulence in the United States during the 1850s. The first floor has elaborate plasterwork
Plasterwork
Plasterwork refers to construction or ornamentation done with plaster, such as a layer of plaster on an interior wall or plaster decorative moldings on ceilings or walls. This is also sometimes called pargeting...
and millwork
Millwork
Millwork is any woodmill-produced building construction interior finish components such as doors, window casing, baseboard, mantels, and crown molding....
throughout, with the drawing room and ladies parlor being the most detailed. They both feature door surrounds with Corinthian columns and are ringed by paneled pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s, topped by plaster cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
s. The main entrance for the first floor enters a L-shaped front hall, with a cantilevered staircase in the side portion of the hall. Other rooms on the first floor are the dining room, gentleman's parlor, and the warming room. The second floor houses a T-shaped hall and four bedrooms. From there, another cantilevered stair leads to an attic-level landing. From this landing a spiral stair winds around a central pole up to the cupola.
Folklore
The house has at least one ghost storyGhost story
A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...
associated with it. Sturdivant Hall is featured in a short story by Kathryn Tucker Windham
Kathryn Tucker Windham
Kathryn Tucker Windham was an American storyteller, author, photographer, and journalist. She was born in Selma, Alabama and grew up in nearby Thomasville....
, in her 13 Alabama ghosts and Jeffrey
13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey
13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey is a book first published in 1969 by folklorist Kathryn Tucker Windham and Margaret Gillis Figh. The book contains thirteen ghost stories from the U.S. state of Alabama. The book was the first in a series of seven Jeffrey books, most featuring ghost stories from a...
. The story, “The Return of the Ruined Banker”, involves John Parkman and the purported return of his ghost to the house after his death.
See also
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Dallas County, Alabama
- Reportedly haunted locations in AlabamaReportedly haunted locations in AlabamaThere are many reportedly haunted locations in the U.S. state of Alabama, with notable places listed below.*Adams Grove Presbyterian Church and adjacent cemetery in Dallas County, allegedly the site of multiple paranormal events...