Gaineswood

About this property

Gaineswood is a grand plantation house in Demopolis, Alabama, and a significant remaining example of Greek Revival architecture in Alabama. The house was built with the profits of forced labor, and much of the actual construction was performed by enslaved people. It was completed on the eve of the American Civil War after a construction period of almost 20 years. The house and grounds are currently operated by the Alabama Historical Commission as a historic house museum. Gaineswood was designed and built by General Nathan Bryan Whitfield, beginning in 1843 as a dog-trot cabin, an open-hall log dwelling. Whitfield was a cotton planter who had moved from North Carolina to Marengo County, Alabama in 1834. In 1842, Whitfield bought the 480-acre (1.9 km2) property from George Strother Gaines, younger brother of Edmund P. Gaines. By 1860, Whitfield owned as many as 7,200 acres and had 235 enslaved people working his land, which produced nearly 600 bales of cotton that year, though not all at Gaineswood. The grounds had been the site of a notable historic event while owned by George Gaines. When Gaines was serving as the U.S. Indian Agent, he is said to have met with the famous chief Pushmataha, of the Choctaw Nation, under an old post oak tree on what would become the Gaineswood estate. They were negotiating the terms of the treaty that would lead to the Choctaw removal to Indian Territory. The tree became known as the Pushmataha Oak. In 1843, Whitfield gave his farm the name of Marlmont; in 1856, he renamed it Gaineswood in honor of Gaines. The Whitfield family tradition maintained that Gaines's original log house was the nucleus around which Whitfield had the mansion built, and that it was located at the present site of the south entrance hall and office. Gen. Whitfield sold the house to his son, Dr. Bryan Watkins Whitfield, in 1861. The second generation of Whitfields maintained Gaineswood as a residence. Mary Foscue Whitfield inherited the nearby Foscue–Whitfield House in 1861 upon her father's death and used that as a residence as well. In 1923 the Whitfield family sold Gaineswood. After years of use as a private residence, Gaineswood was purchased in 1966 by the state of Alabama from Dr. J.D. McLeod, for preservation as a house museum. Gaineswood was completed in its current Greek Revival form in 1861. It is considered to be "Alabama's finest neoclassical house" and one of America's most unusual neoclassical mansions. Gaineswood is one of the few Greek Revival homes in the United States that uses all three of the ancient Greek architectural orders: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. Built when tastes were shifting to the Italianate style, it features a partially asymmetrical layout. Whitfield is known to have designed most of the house from pattern books by James Stuart, Minard Lafever, Nicholas Revett and others. Much of the work on the house was executed by highly skilled artisans who, while doing the work were given shelter and food in exchange. During these times many worked on farms in exchange for housing and minimal funds as work was scarce.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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