History

ADDENDUM
Some Additional Historic Markers as Listed by the Alabama Department of Archives and History

First Gordo City Hall-Jail:
Built June, 1914, by Gordo’s first town council to house Mayor Benjamin Garrison’s office, city courtroom and jail. Building used as City Hall-Jail until 1949. Records show it to be the oldest remaining brick structure in Gordo. Restored 1974, by Gordo Tuesday Study Club as an art gallery and museum. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, Dec. 17, 1974.

Kelly-Stone-Hill Place:
Former home of John Herbert Kelly, brigadier general, C.S. Army, born in Carrollton, March 31, 1840. Appointed to West Point at age 17, resigned a few months before graduation. Fought at Shiloh. Perryville, Murfreesboro and Chickamauga. Mortally wounded at battle of Franklin, Tennessee, August 20, 1864.
For many years this was the home of Lewis Maxwell Stone, state senator, member of the constitutional convention 1875, and speaker of the House of Representatives during the reconstruction period.
Dwelling later occupied by Hugh Wilson Hill, M.D., the third of four generations of a family of physicians who have served this community with marked devotion.

King’s Store Skirmish:
On April 6, 1865, near this site, Confederate forces from Carrollton and Bridgeville attacked a unit of Brig. Gen. John T. Croxton’s Union forces under Capt. William A. Sutherland. Union forces were compelled to abandon 37 Confederate prisoners earlier captured. Union reporters counted one mortally wounded and another taken prisoner. No Confederate casualties were documented. Unable to rejoin Gen. Croxton as ordered, Capt. Sutherland and his 6th Kentucky Cavalry marched on to Decatur.

Lanier’s Mill Skirmish:
On April 6, 1865, near this site on The Sipsey River, Lt. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Confederate forces, under Brig. Gen. Wirt Adams, met Union forces under Brig. Gen John Croxton. Union forces numbering 1,500 men, having burned the 3-story brick mill and resumed their march, were attacked by an equal number of Confederate forces. Gen. Adams reported his losses as 9 killed and 25 wounded and estimated Union losses as 75 killed or captured. Confederates took two Union ambulances and personal baggage of General Croxton, who was forced back to Tuscaloosa. On May 4, when he surrendered, General Adams received this communication from Col George Moorman of his command, “Should the war cease now you would have the honor of having the last victory on the Confederate soil and in the Confederate cause”. The Confederate charge which took place here was the last cavalry charge in The War Between The States.

Mount Moriah Free Will Baptist Church:
Organized by Rev. Ellis Gore in 1846, is recognized as the oldest church of this faith in Alabama. Original Doctrinal Treatise from Fayetteville, North Carolina, received by Rev. Ellis Gore.
The original building, a one-room frame structure, was built in 1846. Two buildings on this site were destroyed by fires in 1865 and 1905. Replacement remodeled and enlarged in 1959. Present structure erected in 1972, known as the “ Mother Church”, has always striven to lead others to the “Heavenly Father”.

Oak Grove Presbyterian Church:
Organized at this site, Franconia, Alabama in 1837. The edifice of colonial architecture included a slave gallery and an amen corner. The congregation moved to Aliceville in 1906 and established the First Presbyterian Church.
Founders and heirs are interred in the adjacent Oak Grove-Franconia Cemetery which contains a section for family slaves who were also church members. The old building was moved to Aliceville in 1931 and is now used as a community church.

Pickens County Courthouse:
Erected 1877-78
Pickens County, named for General Andrew Pickens of South Carolina, was established December 19, 1820.
First county seat was Pickensville. On March 5, 1830 the U. S Government awarded 80 acres of land at Carrollton for the county seat. The first courthouse erected at Carrollton was burned April 5, 1865, by troops of Union General John T. Croxton.
A freedman, Henry Wells, was accused of burning the second on November 16,1876. He was arrested January, 1878, and confined to the garret of the present building. According to legend, as Wells peered out of the north window at a mob gathering below, lightning struck nearby, indelibly etching his image on the pane.

Tabernacle Methodist Church and Campground:
Tabernacle Methodist Campground established 1828. About forty acres of land deeded to church by Marshall Franks. Nathan Hopkins served as first pastor. Ebenezer Hearn was first presiding elder. Among families who helped build and maintain campground and church were those of Henry, Joyner, Franks, Randall, Miller, Woods and Eubanks. Camp meetings held here annually since 1828.