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Down to the Seas in Ships

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California, San Francisco City and County, San Francisco
The marker is primarily composted of photographs and illustrations and the captions that accompany them. Photographs or illustrations are sequentially numbered from the top. Photographs may be enlarged by clicking on the maker images.

You are standing on the old Point-Lombard & Greenwich Dock where the great cargo clipper ships of the 1850s and 60s came into port after rounding Cape Horn with its fearful storms. San Franciscans would never forget heroic Ann Patten, who took over the navigation of Neptune’s Car when her husband, Captain Joshua Patten, became delirious with fatal brain fever. Nursing him when she could, Mary Ann battled foul weather to bring Neptune’s Car safely into San Francisco on November 16, 1856. Just twenty years old, Mary Ann had learned to handle a clipper the year before on a trip to Hong Kong. She was mid-way in her first pregnancy she battled the cape and won.

Illustration 1
Detail from a 19th C. Poster for the Clipper Ship Ocean Express

Photograph 2
Clipper ship Captain Edgar Wakeman rode out dangerous times with his wife Mary by his side. Her tranquil expression does not reflect the murderous four years she sailed on the Adelaide when a mutinous crew went berserk, knocking a seaman overboard, murdering another, and winding up with a hanging from the yardarm. Two children were born at sea amidst this turmoil with only Captain Wakeman in attendance.

Photograph 3
On board the famous United States Revenue Service Cutter Bear, Captain Michael Healy, wearing his gold braid cap, entertained local Innuit visitors in the summer of 1895. Son of an Irish soldier turned Georgia planter, and an octoroon slave, “Hell Roaring Mike” Healy became the first captain of the Bear, the most famous revenue cutter that ever sailed out of San Francisco to rescue whalers stranded in the frozen Bering Sea and the Arctic ice. From 1877 to 1896, his independent command was charged with “protecting the interests of the government” with almost unlimited discretion as to how to carry out his dangerous missions. Captain Michael Healy became famous as the most skillful and knowledgeable captain of the Arctic waters.

Photograph 4
Revenue cutter Bear is jammed in the ice at Point Barrow, in August, 1898. Captain Healy is in command. Four years before, Healy has observed acute alcoholism and starvation killing 200 Innuit in a single village. Captain Healy sailed the Bear to Siberia, where he purchased a herd of reindeer and brought it back to Alaska – an imaginative solution suggested by naturalist John Muir. Reindeer provided the people of Alaska with food, transportation, and warm clothing. Each year from 1884 to 1902, a revenue cutter carried Siberian reindeer to Alaska; by 1940 the herd had grown to 500,000.

Photograph 5
Free China makes 4,500 Mile Voyage in 59 Days
She sailed through the Golden Gate on August 9, 1955. Only 73-feet long, the historic junk was built in 1890 at Mahwei, near Foochow. Originally named Sung Shiow Li, her crew painted her new name Free China, in Chinese and in English – to tell the world of their determination that Formosa must remain forever free from Communist China. Three nights out of Yokosuka, Skipper Marco Yu-ling went overboard in heavy seas – but the sea swept him back, clinging to a sail. Other crew members were: Loo-chi Hu, Reno Chialing Cheng, Chia-chen Hsu, Paul Chow and Calvin Mehlert, American Vice Consul from Formosa. All the Chinese crew were on leave from the Formosa Provincial Fish Administration. Free China sails on San Francisco Bay, fully restored by Maritime Museum volunteers Harry Dring, Henry Rusk, Max Lembke and others.

Embedded around the base
These clipper ships where our gothic cathedrals, our Parthenon; but monuments carved from snow. – Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People

(Waterways & Vessels) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Those Who Harvest the Sea

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California, San Francisco City and County, San Francisco
The marker is primarily composted of photographs and illustrations and the captions that accompany them. Photographs or illustrations are sequentially numbered from the top. Photographs may be enlarged by clicking on the maker images.

You are standing on the site of historic old Fisherman’s Wharf, from the early 1870s until Christmas 1900, the Italian fishing fleet moored their boats, called fellucas, at the foot of Telegraph Hill. Here was room to spread and mend nets, unload and sort fish, and pack them to sell. Chinese shrimp fishermen sailed out of Marin, South San Francisco, and Hunters Point. The Alaska Packers’ salmon fleet wintered over in Oakland, sailing north to fish each spring. From 1876 to 1929, San Francisco was the central whaling port for North America – as square-rigged and steam-powered whalers roamed the Arctic and far reaches of the Pacific.

Illustration 1
Marine Artist Gorgon Grant sailed on the last of the square-rigged ships, to draw life at sea in the 1920s and 30s.

Illustration 2
Artist Louis Choris traveled with the 1816 Russian expedition to San Francisco Bay and drew these Native-Americans plying their distinctive boats made of hollow tule reeds. For people who lived lightly on the land, the tule boat had many ideal qualities: one person could carry it easily; tule reeds could be found on any brackish stream so that boats could be quickly repaired; its shallow draft carried travelers far inland; sitting close to the water made it easy to sieve abundant quantities of fish into woven baskets.

Photograph 3
Large ocean-going Chinese junks, like this one, could be seen on San Francisco Bay, and as far beyond as Monterey. “They go to sea at night because they do all their best sorting and cooking by day; the junk that starts out at 8 p.m. tonight does not return until tomorrow afternoon. They head straight for their string of buoys which mark their fishing grounds. Their nets, funnel-shaped affairs, buoyed up on top and weighted to the bottom, are stretched across a waterway for a quarter to half-a-mile. Seines are laid so as to catch return shoals of shrimp.” - San Francisco Chronicle, 1893

Photograph 4
William Thomas Shorey, born in 1859 in Barbados, West Indies, served as the only black whaling master on the Pacific Coast from 1876 to 1910. He married Julia Ann Shelton of San Francisco in 1883. In 1894, as captain of the famous whaler Gay Head out of San Francisco, he sailed with is wife and infant daughter. At an early age, his daughter Victoria learned to hold the steering wheel. Mrs. Shorey remarked, “Victoria is a remarkable sailor, She knows all the ropes and has perfect command of her father.”
Whaler Gay Head, formerly of New Bedford, sailed out of San Francisco in the 1890s. Captain Shorey recalled: “On a wild, stormy night we were driven into an ice-drift at Shanter Bay, off the coast of Siberia, and at daylight we found ourselves surrounded by ice on every side. We could do nothing but wait for the ice-field to break up; for eight days we lay wedged in the drift while the tides carried us back and forth, threatening to dash us on the shore. This did not alarm the baby. Finally, the ice was carried out to open sea, the drift released the whaler.”

Photograph 5
In from a wet run beyond the Golden Gate, fellucas dry their sails. Seldom out for more than 12 house, their catch depended on the choice of nets – it could be sturgeon, rock cod, salmon, shad, smelt, herring, sole, calamari, or crab. Usually they fished in groups: in dense fog, one boat would sing out the line of a song; and when the next boat picked up the sound, the added a line, until each boat has been accounted for.

Embedded around the base
Once bountiful, the seas slowly empty... Anne Swardson, Washington Post, October 3, 1994

(Industry & Commerce • Waterways & Vessels) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Telegraph Hill

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California, San Francisco City and County, San Francisco
The marker is primarily composted of photographs and illustrations and the captions that accompany them. Photographs or illustrations are sequentially numbered from the top. Photographs may be enlarged by clicking on the maker images.

For ships coming through the Golden Gate, Telegraph Hill could be spotted as the first unmistakable landmark to welcome them to San Francisco. The marine signal on top of the hill used semaphore arms to show anxious citizens at a glace whether an incoming vessel was a side-wheel steamer (bringing in passengers and mail), or a barque (loaded with everything from fish-hooks to billiard balls) or a sloop of war (greeted with a cannon salute and evening festivities). Anyone who wanted to see “everything” has to climb the slopes of Telegraph Hill – and there it was, spread out below. From the city’s beginnings, the hill was a place to live.

Photograph 1
July 4th, 1891: lumber schooner racing off Telegraph Hill.

Illustration 2
“San Francisco at night is unlike anything I ever beheld. Houses mostly made of canvas, made transparent by light from within, and transformed in the darkness to dwellings of solid light... tents pitched among the chaparral to its summit, it gleamed like an amphitheater of fire.” – Bayard Taylor, Reporting to New York Tribune, 1949

Photograph 3
The intrepid builder of this carpenter-Gothic home on the high northern reaches of Telegraph Hill, traded convenience for an encompassing view that included the Golden Gate, Fort Alcatraz, and “Honest Harry” Meiggs’s Wharf. Built on San Francisco Street, between Stockton and Dupont, this handsome four-gabled home appears in 1862; its architectural style is that of San Francisco homes from the late 1850’s up through the Civil War. At that time, Telegraph Hill and North Beach were international communities, with the French living next door to the Swiss, and the Italians over the fence from the Germans, and the Irish scattered about in between, while New England Yankees could be found everywhere.

Photograph 4
Living on the hill meant having your own small place. It meant climbing steep stairs to bring home groceries, on stairways without gaslights, with an out-house on the back porch. You had to love the hill to live there. For the most part, living on Telegraph Hill remained cheap-to-reasonable, precisely because of its steep ups and downs. From the 1880s through 1910, the hill became more Irish and Italian – with Italian settling the south slopes above North Beach.
It was possible to find inexpensive housing right up through World War II. But by the 1950s a place on the hill, with a view and reasonable rent became a treasure that friends passed on to friends. About the same time, carefully tended flower gardens began to bloom in profusion where only backyard paths had been before. Grace Marchant’s Filbert Steps garden added roses, baby tears, fuchias, and datura bells to the private delight of cats and the public’s pleasure.

Photograph 5
Lillie Hitchcock Coit (1842-1929), was a regarded Southern belle. When she was seven she watched her mother burn the family plantation, rather than lose it. At age nine, San Francisco Engine Company #5 saved her from a flaming building. Whenever fire sirens sounded, Lillie followed – to the delight of San Franciscans and the dismay of her family. By twenty, she became a certified member of San Francisco’s Fire Department. Lillie eloped with Harold Coit, who made his fortune in mining, enabling the couple to reside at the Palace Hotel. She smoked cigars, drank bourbon, and drove teams of fire horses – making her home in Paris, Calistoga, and San Francisco. When Lillie died, she left the city money to build a proper monument to San Francisco’s Fire Department and to beautify the city. Coit Tower became the top of the hill landmark on October 8, 1933.

Photograph 6
Stair-stepped against the sky, Telegraph Hill dwellers have enjoyed the views from these Union Street houses since the 1860s and 70s. The three-story Cooney home at 291 Union was built in 1850, and raised to accommodate an automobile. The Telegraph Hill Dwellers organized in 1954 – a time when most of the handsome brick warehouses at the base of hill were being replaced by higher-rise residential development – their purpose was “to make the hill a better place to live and visit.” In 1956, the S.F. Redevelopment Agency declared a section of Telegraph Hill “a blighted area” (as in the Western Addition, when they tore down countless Victorian homes.). The Telegraph Hill Dwellers persuaded the mayor to let them clean up the hill, plant trees, bury utilities, preserve height limits, and deal with parking problems as neighbors. Meisel’s grocery store, at Union and Montgomery, became their communication center and the Semaphore got the word out. The result: for many people, Telegraph Hill shelters and enhances what they love most about the city.

Embedded around the base
Look... the palace... you can glimpse it through that hole in the mosquito fog. – Issa

(Landmarks) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Fort Pierpont

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West Virginia, Monongalia County, Morgantown
John Pierpont, Revolutionary soldier and the son-in-law of Zackquill Morgan, built a fort in 1769. Washington was his guest in 1784. Here was born Francis H. Pierpont, who played an important part in the formation of West Virginia.

(Patriots & Patriotism • War, US Revolutionary) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

201st Infantry/ Field Artillery

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West Virginia, Monongalia County, Morgantown
This National Guard unit traces it origins to Capt. Morgan Morgan, who formed the company Feb. 17, 1735. It served with Washington's militia in Braddock's 1755 campaign. At the outset of the Revolution he called upon these fighting men to "drive the invaders from our land." One of the oldest and still active military units, the 201st has fought or trained men for every conflict involving the U.S.

(War, French and Indian • War, US Revolutionary) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

First Pottery

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West Virginia, Monongalia County, Morgantown
The first pottery in West Virginia was founded here about 1785 and the making of pottery was important before 1800. John Scott, Jacob Foulk, John Thompson, and Francis Billingsley were among the first potters.

(Industry & Commerce • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Old Iron Works

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West Virginia, Monongalia County, Morgantown
Iron furnaces were busy in Monongalia County at early date. At Rock Forge, Samuel Hanway started work, 1798, and on Cheat River, Samuel Jackson built a furnace. The latter plant, under the Ellicotts, worked 1200 men.

(Industry & Commerce • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Morgantown

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West Virginia, Monongalia County, Morgantown
On April 27, 1863, Confederate Gen. William E. “Grumble” Jones and his cavalry occupied Morgantown, a Unionist stronghold. Alerted that the Confederates were approaching, the towns people concealed most of their livestock and personal belongings. Waitman T. Willey, a United States senator in the Restored Government of Virginia, fled Morgantown for Pennsylvania. The president of the local bank removed all of the cash and also went to Pennsylvania. The Confederate cavalrymen seized the few horses that were not well hidden, as well as all of the shoes, boots, and hats that they could find in the Morgantown stores.

Confederate Pvt. William L. Wilson, 12th Virginia Cavalry, wrote in his diary, “This is the meanest Union hole we have been in.” (In 1882, Wilson became president of West Virginia University.)

The Confederates quickly rode out of Morgantown, but to the surprise of the residents, they returned the next day and seized more than 40 horses. The raiders then crossed the suspension bridge to Westover and marched on to Fairmont to destroy the railroad bridge there.

(Side bar-top left)
On April 20, 1863, Confederate Gens. William E. “Grumble” Jones and John D. Imboden began a raid from Virginia through present-day West Virginia on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Taking separate routes, they later reported that they marched 1,100 miles, fought several engagements, captured 700 Federals, seized about 1,200 horses and 4,000 cattle, and burned 4 turnpike bridges, more than 20 railroad bridges, 2 trains, and 150,000 barrels of oil. Most bridges were soon repaired. Confederate losses were slight. By May 26, both commands had returned to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

(Inscription below the photo at the bottom left)
Waitman T. Willey-Courtesy Richard A. Wolfe

(Inscription below the photo in the upper center)
Westover Bridge-Courtesy Richard A. Wolfe

(Side bar-top right)
On April 27, 1863, on the Kingwood Pike, Jones’s column was fired on as it approached Morgantown. The Confederates soon captured three civilians who claimed they were merely hunting. Jones’s men accused them of bushwhacking. The men, Lloyd Beall, Andrew Johnson, and Albert Robey, were lined up and shot. Robey faked death and escaped after the Confederates rode away. Beall and Johnson are buried in local cemeteries. There headstones give April 27, 1863, as the date of death and bear the inscription “killed by Confederate Raiders.”

(Inscription below the photo in the upper right)
Union bushwackers attacking Confederate cavalrymen, engraving by Junius Henry Browne, 1865

(War, US Civil) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Dunkard Sands

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West Virginia, Monongalia County, Morgantown
The Buffalo and Mahoning sandstones, the "Dunkard Sands" of the driller, are exposed in the road cuts and merge to form a great cliff at Raven Rock. They produce oil and natural gas in northern and western West Virginia.

(Industry & Commerce) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

County Home Cemetery

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Wisconsin, Fond du Lac County, Fond du Lac
This site marks the Fond du Lac County Farm Cemetery. The Farm, no longer extant, was founded in 1856 to assist indigent and mentally ill county residents. The cemetery, about 65' x 295' in size, was also known as the Courthouse Burial Grounds. Wooden markers once denoted the burial plots of the residents, interred here over a period of 100 years.

(Cemeteries & Burial Sites) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Ashford Depot

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Alabama, Houston County, Ashford
This depot, an example of late 19th century Victorian railroad architecture, was constructed by the Alabama Midland Railroad in March, 1888 as a way station on the Bainbridge-to-Montgomery route. The depot was the only building to survive a devastating 1915 fire which destroyed the original town area parallel to the railroad track. The Ashford Depot Committee has restored the building to its former appearance and has furnished it with original antiques. The depot houses an “Artifacts of the Wiregrass Museum”, political history memorabilia and has a community room for use by area citizens.

(Railroads & Streetcars) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Big Creek United Methodist Church / Joseph Watford Revolutionary War Veteran

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Alabama, Houston County, near Rehobeth

(side 1)
Big Creek United Methodist Church

One of the oldest churches in southeast Alabama and reportedly the oldest church in Houston County. The first church structure was a log building constructed about 20 yards north of the present building. The second structure was a larger frame building erected in 1865. In 1905, a new frame structure was built. Four Sunday School rooms and a brick exterior were added to the church in 1959.

(side 2)
Joseph Watford Revolutionary War Veteran

Adjacent to Big Creek United Methodist Church is a cemetery containing the grave of Joseph Watford. Mr. Watford served as a soldier for four years during the American Revolutionary War. In 1833, he emigrated from South Carolina to this area of southeast Alabama. He died in July 1845. Mr. Watford is believed to be the only Revolutionary War Veteran buried in Houston County.

(Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Churches, Etc. • War, US Revolutionary) Includes location, directions, 6 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Atlantic Coastline Passenger Station

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Alabama, Houston County, Dothan

Side 1
Constructed by the Atlantic Coastline Railroad in 1907 during Dothan's rapid growth as a commercial center of the Wiregrass Region, this building serves as a reminder of the most popular and accessible form of transportation in the early 20th century, linking Dothan citizens to larger cities and beyond. Adjacent to this station was the city's first passenger & freight depot, built by the Alabama Midland Railroad in 1889 and demolished in the early 1970's. This two-story brick station served Dothan until 1979 when it was closed to passenger traffic. (Continued on other side) Side 2 (Continued from other side) The railroad used this station as an office complex until it finally closed in 1985. The building was purchased by the City of Dothan from CSX Transportation in 1989 to stop its planned demolition. The Atlantic Coastline Passenger Station is listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage and the Department of the Interior's National Register of Historic Places. During 2007 & 2008, the Wiregrass Transit Authority renovated the station to serve as its headquarters.

(Railroads & Streetcars) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Columbia Baptist Church

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Alabama, Houston County, Columbia

Side 1
This church was constituted in 1835 following the withdrawal of six people from Omussee Baptist Church in a dispute over the role of missions. The first pastor Edmund Talbot, who served the Church until 1853, donated that land and had the church built at his own expense. It was situated at the present site of the Willis J. Bell grave in Columbia Cemetery. In 1859 a new building was constructed by Nathaniel Ferris Oakley just to the south of the original church. This was replaced by a red brick auditorium which was erected in 1885.

Side 2
The Omussee Baptist Church dissolved shortly after the “split-off” which resulted in the organization of the Columbia Baptist Church. Both churches probably belonged to the Chattahoochee River Association in their formative years. In 1839 the Church joined the Bethel Association of Georgia. It later affiliated with the Judson Association. On November 7, 1885 the Columbia Baptist Church participated in the organization meeting of the Columbia Baptist Association which was held at Bluff Spring Church in Henry County, Alabama.

(Churches, Etc.) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Cherry Street African Methodist Episcopal Church

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Alabama, Houston County, Dothan
On this site in 1877 Gaines Chapel Church was organized. A wooden structure was erected adjacent to an existing graveyard. In 1891 and 1901 additional land was purchased.

In 1908 the present building was dedicated. This structure was of early twentieth century design. At this time its name was changed to Cherry Street AME Church.

The Church has been declared the “Mother Church” of the AME denomination in the State of Alabama.

(African Americans • Churches, Etc.) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Columbia Methodist Episcopal Church, South

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Alabama, Houston County, Columbia

Side 1
History suggests that, in the early 1820's, circuit riding preachers from the South Carolina Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church arrived in the newly settled town of Columbia. Assigned to the Early County Mission in Georgia, these men served settlements on both sides of the Chattahoochee River. About 1832, a one room Methodist preaching house was established about two blocks west of this site. In 1889, a wooden structure at this location was completed at a cost of $2,000 and the first service was conducted on July 14 by Rev. J. M. Brown. The church was dedicated on September 27, 1891, at the close of the 11 o'clock service. In 1949, the building was bricked and annexes were added in 1956 and 1979.

Side 2
On June 26, 1883, a Good Templers Lodge was organized at the church with about 25 members to promote temperance in the community. Prominent church members have included: Rev. Alpheus Reid Adams (1859-1933), a Methodist preacher of early churches in Barbour and (old) Henry County; Dr. John Fletcher Yarbrough (1864-1950), who was involved in work to eradicate pellagra; Mr. William L. Lee (1873-1944), a distinguished attorney who served southeast Alabama; Bishop Clare Purcell (1884-1964) who was elected President of the Council of Bishops; and Dr. William Graham Echols (1892-1982), minister and professor of religion at a number of colleges and universities.

(Churches, Etc. • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Columbia, Alabama

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Alabama, Houston County, Columbia
Founded in 1820, Columbia was originally located about a mile south, near where the Omussee Creek flows into the Chattahoochee River. It served as the county seat of Henry County from 1826 to 1833. Bordering the State of Georgia and the Chattahoochee River, Columbia was a major port-of-call for steamboats and was known to many as “Old Columbia.” The town was incorporated in 1880 and was the center of education, culture, commerce, and trade. Located in the southeast corner of Alabama, Columbia was the largest town in the area during the 19th century and remains one of the area’s oldest continuously operating municipalities. When the railroad came in 1889, Columbia’s river trade diminished; however, Columbia sustained itself as a thriving farming community through the mid-20th century. Columbia received its first cotton textile mill in 1891 and its first electric plant in 1892. A branch of the Henry County Courthouse was located here from 1889 until Columbia became part of Houston County in 1903. Columbia got electric street lights in 1900 and its first electric utility company in 1914.

(Industry & Commerce • Settlements & Settlers • Waterways & Vessels) Includes location, directions, 6 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Old Columbia Jail / Columbia

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Alabama, Houston County, Columbia

(side 1)
Old Columbia Jail

Erected sometime in the early 1860's, the Old Columbia Jail is today one of the last wooden jails still standing in Alabama. Originally, there were two cells, each measuring 10 x 15 feet. Interior walls are studded every two inches with iron spikes to prevent prisoners from being able to escape. The Columbia Women's Club and the Columbia Bicentennial Committee have completely renovated the building as a museum to preserve some of the articles of historical interest to Columbia citizens.

(side 2)
Columbia

Formerly a prominent Chattahoochee River port-of-call, Columbia served as a major trading center for communities throughout the Wiregrass area of Alabama. Between 1822-1833, it was the county seat for Henry County which then comprised portions of present day Covington, Dale, Barbour, Coffee, Crenshaw, Bullock, Geneva and Houston Counties. At the turn of the century, Columbia was bypassed by the Alabama Midland Railway in favor of Dothan. As the railroads continued to take freight trade away from the riverboats, Columbia's position as a principal trade center began to decline.

(Industry & Commerce • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Purcell - Killingsworth House

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Alabama, Houston County, Columbia
This house, also known as Travelers Rest, was completed in 1890 by William Henry Purcell (1845-1910) a prominent Columbia businessman and politician. Purcell had many business interests including a steamboat landing on the Chattahoochee River. This was the boyhood home of Bishop Clare Purcell (1884-1964) who, in 1955, was elected President of the Council of Bishops, the highest place of recognition ever achieved by a native-born Alabama Methodist minister. In 1946 the Purcell family sold the two acre homestead to Mr. & Mrs. Henry Killingsworth who have meticulously restored this imposing Victorian mansion. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places December 16, 1982.

(Notable Buildings) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Gordon Cemetery / Early Gordon Leaders

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Alabama, Houston County, Gordon

(side 1)
Gordon Cemetery

Mr. William Wood (b. 22 Mar. 1826, d. 15 Oct. 1885), a prominent Gordon businessman, donated one acre of land located north of the town center adjacent to the old river road, now U.S. Highway 95, from his large plantation estate to the Town of Gordon for the purpose of establishing a permanent cemetery for the town. In 1859 Mr. Wood was elected to the Alabama State Senate, serving four years. He was also an active Mason and served as mayor of Gordon. A prosperous merchant, he established two riverboat landings at Gordon, known as the Upper and Middle landings.

(side 2) Early Gordon Leaders

Below are some of the prominent early Gordon
citizens buried in this cemetery.
Mr. Arthur J. Bowdon, b. 1809
Mr. William Wood, b. 1826
Mr. Samuel Bowdon, b. 1835
Mr. Samuel J. Hall, b. 1837
Mr. McKelvey C. Marsh, b. 1848
Mr. Ben F. Snead, b. 1851
Mr. William G. Roundtree, Jr., b. 1852
Dr. T. R. McLendon, b. 1854
Mr. John R. Espy, b. 1856
Mr. E. F. Tuttle, b. 1858

(Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
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