Grove Hill is a town in Clarke County, Alabama, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 1,438. The city is the county seat of Clarke County and home of the Clarke County Museum.
Clarke County Courthouse in Grove HillHistory
Grove Hill has several sites on the National Register of Historic Places including the Alston-Cobb House and the Grove Hill Courthouse Square Historic District.
The Alston-Cobb House
The Alston-Cobb House in 2008The Alston-Cobb House, now formally known as the Clarke County Museum, is a historic house museum in Grove Hill, Alabama. It was built in 1854 by Dr. Lemuel Lovett Alston as a Greek Revival I-house, a vernacular style also known in the South as Plantation Plain. It is one of only four examples of an I-house to survive intact in Clarke County.
History
Lemuel Alston migrated to Grove Hill and began the practice of medicine around 1852. The house was completed in 1854, shortly before his marriage to Sarah French Jackson on November 1, 1854. The house was subsequently owned by the Bettis, Cobb, Bumpers, and Postma families until it was purchased by the Clarke County Historical Society in 1980. The historical society restored the house and opened it as the Clarke County Museum in 1986. The museum features exhibits that cover a broad range of topics from Zeuglodon fossils to the American Civil War and an antebellum kitchen. The Alston-Cobb House was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 30, 1979.
The grounds
Several historic structures have been moved to the museum grounds and restored. The Creagh Law Office, built in 1834 by Judge John Gates Creagh, was moved to the site in 1990 and restored. The Turner Corn Crib is a corn crib which is thought to have been partially built from timbers salvaged from Fort Turner, a log fortification that served the area during the Creek War in 1813. It was moved to the grounds in 2001 and restored. The Mathews Cabin was acquired in 2005 and restoration was completed in 2008. It is a log cabin with two large rooms separated by a breezeway, a form often known as a dogtrot, and dates to the mid-19th century.
The Airmont Grave Shelter
The Airmount Grave Shelter, also known as the Hope Family Grave Shelter is a brick grave shelter, or grave house, located in the Airmount Cemetery near Thomasville, Alabama. It is unusual in that it protects six graves instead of the more common one grave. The brick structure was built in 1853 by John Hope. It is built in a vernacular Greek Revival style with a gabled roof. The interior features a wooden vaulted ceiling. The shelter was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 24, 2000 as a part of the Clarke County Multiple Property Submission.
The grave shelter in Airmount Cemetery.Burials
The interior The shelter contains the graves of the following individuals:
Archibald H. Hope, born May 20, 1823 and died September 26, 1850.
Margaret Hope, born Nov 20, 1797 and died May 1851.
Jane A. Hope, born February 9, 1813 and died November 22, 1852.
John Allison Hope, born October 3, 1855 and died October 25, 1856.
John Hope, born October 3, 1791 and died April 6, 1868.
Sarah Jane Powell Hope, born July 7, 1829 and died July 7, 1885.
The Bush House
The Bush House is a historic house in Grove Hill, Alabama. The two-story Colonial Revival style house was built in 1912. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 28, 1999. It was listed due to its architectural significance as a part of the Clark County Multiple Property Submission.
The John A. Coate House
The John A. Coate House is a historic house in Grove Hill, Alabama. The one-story spraddle-roof house was built in 1855. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 28, 1999. It was listed due to its architectural significance as a part of the Clarke County Multiple Property Submission.
The Cobb House
The Cobb House is a historic house near Grove Hill, Alabama. The two-story I-house was built in 1865. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 28, 1999. It was listed due to its architectural significance as a part of the Clarke County Multiple Property Submission.
The Dickinson House
The Dickinson House is a historic house in Grove Hill, Alabama. The two-story Italianate style house was built in 1845. It was designed by James Newman. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 13, 1978. The house was listed due to its architectural significance as an early example of Italianate architecture.
Fort Sinquefield U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Built/Founded: 1813
Governing body: Fort Sinquefield Historical Association
Fort Sinquefield is the historic site of a wooden stockade fortification in Clarke County, Alabama, near the modern town of Grove Hill. It was built by early Clarke County pioneers as protection during the Creek War and was attacked in 1813 by Creek warriors. A marker was erected at the site by Clarke County school children in 1931 and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 31, 1974.
History
At the time of the Creek War, Clarke was a newly formed county in the Mississippi Territory. The first hostilities of the war occurred nearby during the Battle of Burnt Corn, where white settlers attacked the Red Sticks on July 27, 1813. The Red Sticks retaliated on August 30, 1813 with the Fort Mims massacre, in which several hundred people assembled inside Fort Mims were killed.
Fort Sinquefield was housing several pioneer families and friendly Creeks after the attack on Fort Mims. On September 1, 1813, Red Sticks warriors led by Josiah Francis, a.k.a. Prophet Francis, attacked the Ransom Kimbell and Abner James families, who had left the crowded fort for Ransom Kimbell's cabin nearby. Most of the men escaped back to the fort, but twelve women and children were killed and scalped in what became known as the Kimbell-James Massacre. The bodies were retrieved for burial outside of the fort the next day. After the burials, several woman were washing clothes at a spring away from the fort when the hostile Creeks attacked a second time. They attempted to cut the women off from the fort, but were thwarted and only managed to kill one woman, Sarah Phillips. Several Creek warriors were killed in the attack, as was one additional settler, Stephen Lacey. The attack lasted two hours before the Red Sticks retreated. The fort was abandoned afterwards, with the survivors moving to the larger Fort Madison, several miles to the south of Fort Sinquefield.
Notable natives
Doug Barfield - Head football coach at Auburn University from 1976 to 1980.
John W. Cranford - Representative for Texas.
Grant Gillis - Major League Baseball player from 1927 to 1929.
F. David Mathews - United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under Gerald Ford.
Jim Herod - Author of Gathering Moss
Cliff Nobles - Pop musician
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