HISTORIC HOMES
William Edward Bryant/Maggie Richerson Home: 1911
The home of William Edward and his wife, Maggie Richerson Bryant, was begun in 1911. Mr. Willie was Justice of the Peace for many years and also had a mill in operation in Dyas Fork where the framing and the joist for his home were cut and hauled by ox team to its present location. The dimensions were 2 feet by 12 feet.; the sills 12 feet by 12 feet. The ceiling, flooring and weatherboarding were bought from the Cedar Creek Lumber Company in Brewton, Alabama, shipped by rail to Bay Minette and hauled by ox team to Stockton. The home is now owned by Mr. and Mrs. William Morris who have restored all of the original out buildings and allow tours of their “working farm”. Also located on this property, is the oldest barn in the state of Alabama.
BARTRAM'S TRAIL
The Bartram Trail follows the approximate route of eighteenth-century naturalist William Bartram’s southern journey from March, 1773 to January, 1777. Bartram explored much of the territory which is now the states of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. The Bartram Trail Conference, Inc., was founded in 1976 to identify and mark the route of Bartram’s southern explorations and to promote interest in developing recreational trails and botanical gardens along the route.
KENNEDY MILL c. 1811
Site of one of Alabama's first sawmills. In 1811, Joshua Kennedy engaged Jesse Ember to build two water-powered sawmills. They were operated by Kennedy through the 1820s. The mill dam and site were later used by Byrne Bros., and then by Hastie and Silver, Co., until 1906 when they were abandoned.
STOCKTON PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ORGANIZED 1847
The First Church on Record in the Tensaw Settlement was built in 1845 in Stockton, Alabama. Called the “Union Church”. Here, both the Presbyterians and Methodists met together in a common desire to clean up the immorality that existed. A stairway in the building led to a balcony, where until the Civil War, blacks worshiped together with the whites.
The church was started by Benjamin Metcalf who left $500 in his will for the erection of a church and the marking of his families graves. The old “Union Church” was built near Gallagher’s Spring, on the south side of Highway 225 about a quarter of a mile from the junction of 225 and Highway 59, almost directly across from the spring, located on the north side of Highway 225, at the top of the hill, right before the intersection to 225 and 59. A “man made”lake now occupies the site. Serving as the first Clerk was Gerald Byrne.
