Two Dollars Summer 1988 THE HISTORIC HUNTSVILLE QUARTERLY of Local Architecture and Preservation THE HISTORIC HUNTSVILLE QUARTERLY of Local Architecture and Preservation Vol. XIV, No. 4 Summer 1988 Contents 3 Blevins Gap: A Road Less Traveled by Nancy Rohr 16 Green Lawn Update: Changes Under Way at the Old Plantation by Micky Haroney 18 First Bathtub Said to be a Nonte Sano Product 21 Monte Sano Mountain Had Early Health Settlement by Pat Jones THE HISTORIC HUNTSVILLE QUARTERLY is published four times a year by the Historic Huntsville Foundation, Inc., P.O. Box 786, Huntsville, Alabama 35804. Editor: Micky Maroney. Staff Researcher-Writer: Joberta Wasson. Subscriptions are mailed free to all Foundation members. OPPOSITE PAGE: The road across Blevins Gap (the dip slightly right of center) was for many years the only direct route from Huntsville to points to the southeast. Monte Sano is at far left; Huntsville Mountain and Green Mountain stretch from the edge of Monte Sano southward to the Tennessee River. COVER: Guests of Monte Sano Hotel taking their ease at Alum Spring on Monte Sano in the late 1800's when the hotel was at its height of popularity as a healthful mountain resort. PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS: Nancy Rohr: pp. 3-6. Courtesy of Ruby Webster Champion: p. 12. Micky Maroney: pp. 13, 16. Courtesy of Huntsville Public Library: Cover; pp. 8-9, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26. 2 B l e v in s G a p : A Road Less Traveled by Nancy Rohr Long before there was a When settlers and trad­ state of Alabama or even a ers began to come into the town of Huntsville, Indians valley from the east, they and animals had carved out a followed this old road per­ road for themselves over the force, because it was the Green Mountain Range which only road. It became the lies to the south and east of connecting link with the this valley near Huntsville. Owens Cross Roads, Big Cove, If early risers in the south­ New Hope, and Guntersville ernmost part of town look up areas and on toward Atlanta. toward Green Mountain when the first ray of sunlight It wound down the moun­ appears, they can see the tain to a point just east of exact location of the old the present Grissom High road. The sun will be shin­ School, then turned slightly ing on them through the rim north to connect with the of a pass, while the rest of Four Mile Post Road, which the valley remains dark be­ was another very old thor­ hind higher elevations. This oughfare. (Bailey Cove Road is Blevins Gap. It was the was originally part of Four logical place for a road Mile Post Road.) because it is only 1200 feet high while the elevations on Early in the nineteenth each side measure 1400 feet century, the Blevins broth­ or more. Today there is lit­ ers, John and William, and tle to show for the site. It their father Dillon, came to is a forgotten part of the the Madison County area look­ past. ing for good farmland and pleasant homesites, as all up to the present. One of typical settlers did. It is the most intriguing was an interesting to note that account written by Lucius their forebears had been with Bierce, uncle of the writer Daniel Boone on the Wilder­ Ambrose Bierce. Lucius, after ness TrailJ graduating from Ohio Univer­ sity in 1822, traveled exten­ Judge Thomas Jones Tay­ sively on foot and on horse­ lor recalls in his A History back through the southeastern of Madison County that John United States. and William bought land as early as 1809. The land of­ Bierce chose to "ramble" fice records indicate that into the interior of the their land was along what is young nation, and his travels now Whitesburg Drive and Four took him through what is now Mile Post Road in Huntsville. West Virginia, Virginia, John also purchased property North Carolina, the northern in Little Cove in 1809, 1810, part of Georgia, and into the and 1811. The family bought newly formed state of Ala­ the gap itself, not for farm­ bama . land - it was too rocky - but to insure easy passage over On April 5, 1823 he the mountain. Records show climbed Sand Mountain, stop­ that John bought more land in ping for the night at Brown's 1833, 1835, and 1838, and Tavern. The next day he that William Blevins owned a passed by Gunter's Landing, house in town on Clinton the Big Honey Comb Spring, Avenue. However, Alabama and the Paint Rock River. deed books show, too, that by After walking 29 miles that 1819 the family had begun to day, he spent the night by look elsewhere for even more the Flint River, sleeping in land, and at least part of the rain. them had moved on to Shelby County, Alabama.2 On April 7, 1823 he wrote in his logbook: There are numerous ref­ erences to Blevins Gap Road leaving Flint, which is in books and in records, even the boundary between Blevins Gap from the Big Cove area east of Green Mountain. The old Blevins Gap road today seems hardly more than a wide footpath; however, in years past, the road was used by wagons and buggies, as well as by pedestrians. At one time, a stage­ coach regularly traveled the road. Decatur [a county from take him in for the night. 1821-1825 in the area He had to walk on to Moores- between the Flint and ville for a bed.1* Tennessee Rivers]^ I went five miles when I Early local records re­ came to Blevins gap, an fer many times to the road opening in an otherwise through the gap. At a meeting impassable mountain, of the Orphan's Court between and after wading 1810 and 1817, the minutes through creeks and mud stated: "...David Cobb and holes, eight miles far­ James Neeley be appointed ther I came to Hunts­ overseers over a road leading ville, the county seat from John Bunches and by of Madison County, be­ Armistand Bealers, by Dillon ing the first village I Blevins and crossing the have seen for two hun­ mountain at his gapp [sic] dred and eight miles and on the Stick Sholes tsic] and containing the of the Flint R i v e r . " 5 first brick dwelling house I have seen since In his account, Judge leaving Virginia. Taylor related that "Below Huntsville a road has been The day he arrived in opened through Blevin's Gap," Huntsville there had been a apparantly in the 1820's.6 jail break and no one would 5 This rock retaining wall on the east side of the old Blevins Gap Road has been in place since before 1875, the year Madison County stopped maintaining the portion of the road which crossed the mountain gap. It was the old English is shown clearly on the Madi­ county system to require son County Map for 1850. every able-bodied male from the age of eighteen to work In 1857 the Blevins Gap ten days each year on the road was described in the county roads in their own Minutes as starting from neighborhoods. According to "Whitesburg near Cooper's this arrangement, an appor- place to within 200 yards of tioner was appointed in each the top of the mountain to precinct. He saw to it that the cave road."8 Later, in the appointed overseer for July of 1857, S. J. Esslinger each section of county road was "appointed to oversee did his job accordingly. Blevins Gap Road from the From the Madison County Com­ Pike at Gafree's old place to missioners' Minutes, it is within 200 yards of the top known that in 1831 Noah E_?_ of the cave road."9 was appointed overseer of "the road from the foot of At the fall term in the mountain at the North and 1859, Andrew Esslinger was South line of Blevins Gap to appointed overseer of the _?_ S. Teagues."7 So the road from the Turnpike to the responsibility for maintain­ top of the mountain, and John ing the road is made clear as Hale was appointed overseer established by law. The road for the second half to Vienna (New Hope).10 6 During the War between There was a local the States, Madison County story, told by more than one suffered in many ways. The person of the Big Cove area, entries in the Commissioners' that two luckless Northern Minutes were clearly written soldiers, or deserters, for 1861, as they had been caught stealing horses, were previously. Each section of killed and their bodies hid­ each road was listed in the den in limestone sinkholes by volume, mile for mile. How­ a young Southern boy. The ever, there was a blank space location of these sinkholes for the name of each over­ was supposedly near the road. seer! No one had the time or No bodies have ever been inclination to work on the found to verify the story, road systems! but that does not mean people are not still looking for There were at least two them. Civil War incidents reported in the Official Records re­ The Official Military garding activity through or Atlas of the Civil War shows near Blevins Gap. In 1864 clearly three different maps Captain Robert S. Richart of of the Madison County area the 12th Indiana Cavalry re­ with Blevins Gap Road drawn ported a skirmish in the Big in as the only way out of Cove area to his commanding Huntsville to the southeast officer.