Gaineswood is a

plantation house A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and e ...

Demopolis Demopolis is the largest city in Marengo County, in west-central Alabama. The population was 7,162 at the time of the 2020 United States census, down from 7,483 at the 2010 census. The city lies at the confluence of the Black Warrior River and T ...

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It is the grandest plantation house ever built in

Marengo County Marengo County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, the population was 19,323. The largest city is Demopolis, and the county seat is Linden. It is named in honor of the Battle of ...

and is one of the most significant remaining examples of Greek Revival architecture in Alabama.Gamble, Robert ''Historic architecture in Alabama: a guide to styles and types, 1810-1930'', page 76. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1990. . The house was built with the profits of

forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

, and much of the actual construction was performed by enslaved people. It was completed on the eve of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

after a construction period of almost 20 years. The house and grounds are currently operated by the

Alabama Historical Commission The Alabama Historical Commission is the historic preservation agency for the U.S. state of Alabama. The agency was created by an act of the state legislature in 1966 with a mission of safeguarding Alabama’s historic buildings and sites. It cons ...

as a

historic house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a ...

History

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 North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

Marengo County, Alabama Marengo County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, the population was 19,323. The largest city is Demopolis, and the county seat is Linden. It is named in honor of the Battle of ...

in 1834. In 1842, Whitfield bought the property from George Strother Gaines, younger brother of

Edmund P. Gaines Edmund Pendleton Gaines (March 20, 1777 – June 6, 1849) was a career United States Army officer who served for nearly fifty years, and attained the rank of major general by brevet. He was one of the Army's senior commanders during its format ...

. 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 In United States history, an Indian agent was an individual authorized to interact with American Indian tribes on behalf of the government. Background The federal regulation of Indian affairs in the United States first included development of t ...

, he is said to have met with the famous chief

Pushmataha Pushmataha (c. 1764 – December 24, 1824; also spelled Pooshawattaha, Pooshamallaha, or Poosha Matthaw), the "Indian General", was one of the three regional chiefs of the major divisions of the Choctaw in the 19th century. Many historians cons ...

, of the Choctaw Nation, under an old

post oak ''Quercus stellata'', the post oak or iron oak, is a North American species of oak in the white oak section. It is a slow-growing oak that lives in dry areas on the edges of fields, tops of ridges also grows in poor soils, and is resistant to r ...

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 Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

. The tree became known as the Pushmataha Oak.Hammond, Ralph ''Ante-bellum Mansions of Alabama'', pages 114-120. New York: Architectural Book Publishers, 1951. In 1843, Whitfield gave his farm the name of Marlmont; in 1856, he renamed it Gaineswood in honor of Gaines.Marengo County Heritage Book Committee: ''The heritage of Marengo County, Alabama'', page 18. Clanton, Alabama: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000. The Whitfield family tradition maintained that Gaines' 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.

Architecture

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 Asymmetry is the absence of, or a violation of, symmetry (the property of an object being invariant to a transformation, such as reflection). Symmetry is an important property of both physical and abstract systems and it may be displayed in pre ...

layout. Whitfield is known to have designed most of the house from pattern books by James Stuart,

Minard Lafever Minard Lafever (1798–1854) was an American architect of churches and houses in the United States in the early nineteenth century. Life and career Lafever began life as a carpenter around 1820. At this period in the United States there were no ...

Nicholas Revett Nicholas Revett (1720–1804) was a British architect. Revett is best known for his work with James "Athenian" Stuart documenting the ruins of ancient Athens. He is sometimes described as an amateur architect, but he played an important role in t ...

and others. Much of the work on the house was executed by highly skilled

artisan An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art ...

s 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. .

Exterior

The exterior has a decorative stucco over brick treatment, intended to simulate ashlar blocks. The exterior features the use of eighteen fluted

Doric columns The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of col ...

and 14 plain square

pillars A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

to support the three

porch A porch (from Old French ''porche'', from Latin ''porticus'' "colonnade", from ''porta'' "passage") is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance of a building. A porch is placed in front of the facade of a building it commands, and form ...

es, the main portico, and the

porte-cochère A porte-cochère (; , late 17th century, literally 'coach gateway'; plural: porte-cochères, portes-cochères) is a doorway to a building or courtyard, "often very grand," through which vehicles can enter from the street or a covered porch-like ...

. The assorted porches surround most of three sides of the structure.

Parterre A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...

gardens off of the main north portico and south porch are surrounded by low masonry and wood

balustrades A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

and feature period-appropriate plantings and marble statuary. A rooftop observation ring with a vasiform balustrade surmounts the house and was used for observing the estate. The estate has three surviving outbuildings: a cook's house, a garden

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

with eight fluted Corinthian columns, and a monumental

gatehouse A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the mo ...

that date to the

antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ...

period. The tripartite entrance gate features massive pillars crowned by large metal finials and elaborate

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impur ...

gates. The gatehouse and gates had to moved closer to the house as the city streets were widened in the 20th century. No quarters for the enslaved residents were preserved, although some may have existed into the early 20th century for use as residences for workers on the plantation.

Interior

The interior features decorative

plasterwork Plasterwork is construction or ornamentation done with plaster, such as a layer of plaster on an interior or exterior wall structure, or plaster decorative moldings on ceilings or walls. This is also sometimes called pargeting. The process of ...

throughout the main floor. The library and the dining room both feature elaborate domed ceilings with central skylights. The hallway features

fluted Fluting may refer to: *Fluting (architecture) * Fluting (firearms) * Fluting (geology) * Fluting (glacial) *Fluting (paper) Arts, entertainment, and media *Fluting on the Hump ''Fluting on the Hump'' is the first album by avant-garde band Kin ...

Ionic columns The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite ...

in the main entrance hall with reception rooms to either side, one for each sex. The master's bedroom also features two

Ionic columns supporting a cornice that visually divides the room into bedroom and sitting room. The mistress' bedroom features a large floor-to-ceiling semicircular bay with curved windows and is fronted by two fluted

Corinthian columns The Corinthian order (Greek: Κορινθιακός ρυθμός, Latin: ''Ordo Corinthius'') is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order ...

. Doors to either side of the bay provide access to the

semicircular In mathematics (and more specifically geometry), a semicircle is a one-dimensional locus of points that forms half of a circle. The full arc of a semicircle always measures 180° (equivalently, radians, or a half-turn). It has only one line o ...

porch outside with its six Doric columns. The ballroom features four fluted Corinthian columns and 24 fluted Corinthian pilasters,

vis-à-vis Vis-à-vis may refer to: * Vis-à-vis, a French expression in English, literally "face to face (with)", meaning in comparison with or in relation to * ''Vis-à-vis'' (album), by Karol Mikloš, 2002 * Vis-à-vis (carriage), a type of horse-drawn ...

mirrors, an elaborate plaster cornice, and a

coffered ceiling A coffer (or coffering) in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, als ...

. The second floor is much simpler in

decor Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordina ...

and contains a

boudoir A boudoir (; ) is a woman's private sitting room or salon in a furnished residence, usually between the dining room and the bedroom, but can also refer to a woman's private bedroom. The term derives from the French verb ''bouder'' (to sulk ...

, a nursery, and four large bedrooms.

Whitfield canal

Whitfield directed the digging of a drainage canal 1845 and 1863 to prevent water from overflowing and flooding the plantation. His slaves dug it by hand. The rainfall on a large section of the Gaineswood estate originally had to follow a course to reach the

Tombigbee River The Tombigbee River is a tributary of the Mobile River, approximately 200 mi (325 km) long, in the U.S. states of Mississippi and Alabama. Together with the Alabama, it merges to form the short Mobile River before the latter empties int ...

. About one mile (1.6 km) long, the canal was dug to a depth of more than deep through the underlying

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

in some areas; it quickly diverts the surface water into the river at

Present

Gaineswood is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

and was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1973. The estate is owned by the state of

and is administered by the

. Severe moisture damage to the ceiling and dome in the dining room was corrected under a

Save America's Treasures Save America's Treasures is a United States federal government initiative to preserve and protect historic buildings, arts, and published works. It is a public–private partnership between the U.S. National Park Service and the National Trust fo ...

grant. The Whitfield family has donated or sold much of the original family furniture and some statuary to the Historical Commission to be used in the house. ''The Burning of the

Eliza Battle The ''Eliza Battle'' was a Tombigbee River steamboat that ran a route between Columbus, Mississippi and Mobile, Alabama in the United States during the 1850s. She was destroyed in a fire on the river near modern Pennington, Alabama on March 1, ...

,'' painted by Nathan B. Whitfield, still hangs at Gaineswood. He was a witness to the steamboat disaster in 1858.

References

External links

Alabama Historical Commission: Gaineswood
* {{National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places in Marengo County, Alabama National Historic Landmarks in Alabama Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama Houses in Demopolis, Alabama Greek Revival houses in Alabama Historic house museums in Alabama Plantation houses in Alabama Museums in Marengo County, Alabama Tourist attractions in Marengo County, Alabama Alabama State Historic Sites Pendleton family residences Whitfield family residences 1843 establishments in Alabama