THE COLONEL MONTGOMERY GILBREATH HOUSE
BY MACELEE TAYLOR
PHOTO BY M.T. DEC. 2012
The Gilbreath house, Hit by a cannon ball and saved from the wrecking ball, sits back off
Blount Avenue on part of the original five acres purchased for two hundred and fifty dollars
from John and Mary Finley White on Oct.6,1856.No buildings were listed in the sale. The
house is believed to be built soon after this purchase. The lot was part of an eighty acre tract
granted to Alva Finlay in 1843 from the United States Government. The property fronted on
Back Street (present day Blount Avenue) and was bounded on the south by Taylor St. and east
by St. Clair. Montgomery Gilbreath also owned five more acres behind this first purchase.
Nearby was Gunter’s Creek, now a part of Guntersville Lake since the 1939 completion of the
reservoir and dam. Behind the house and across the railroad tracks was a road that ran along
the creek to ferry landing at the river near the present day bridge. Boiling springs was near the
creek and tales of the stolen chicken cookouts are still told today by descendants of those who
participated. There was also a collection of small cabins, home to one of the Black communities
of the time, still present in the 1930’s.
The Colonel married Temperance Jane Kilfoyle, born 1824 in East Tennessee to Peter ‘Kilfoile’
(1797) of Queens County, Ireland and Mary Berry (1799) of South Carolina. Montgomery and
Tempe had ten children. Emmett (1842), Mary (1846), Sallie, (1847), John (1849), Alexander
(1854), Edward (1857), Montgomery “Montie”(1859), Albert Sydney (1862), Catherine “Katie”
(1864), and Gordon (1868). Col. Montgomery Gilbreath and wife Tempe sold son John the
corner of their lot on Blount Avenue and Taylor Street to build his family home in 1883. After
the death of Montgomery, Tempe inherited the estate. She conveyed an easement in 1892 for
the Nashville Chattanooga Railway for one dollar. After her death in 1898 the acreage was
divided among her children, leaving the center lot with the house and buildings to daughter
Katie Gilbreath Wiggs, who died before settlement. Kate’s widowed husband, Thomas Wiggs,
and her brothers Gordon and Emmett were living there in the early 1900’s. In 1918 Mrs.
Dickie Lane was also a tenant. On Oct. of 1925 Thomas Wiggs
gs sold the homestead to Kate’s
nephew, Dayton Gilbreath, son of Montie. Dayton’s daughters were born there. His mortgage
was held by Ezekial Couch when Sister Kate Kinnie purchased it from him in 1934. Dayton and
family were still living in the house in the 1940’s when Kate and husband George obtained a
mortgage for two thousand, two hundred and twenty five dollars for “roofing, building a new
kitchen, connecting to sewer, putting in bath fixtures, painting, building porches and other
things”. They paid it off in 1944 and were still in possession in 1946 and living in Nashville in
1948. Kate Kinney sold to Lilli Powell Posey who was operating a boarding house when
nephew Howard Powell purchased it and adjoining properties in 1974 from her estate. George
Hardy, brother in law of Howard Powell, was a tenant in 1972 and still there in January of
1989 when he measured the old oak tree in the front yard. In 2001 the city made Powell an
offer to purchase the property for use as a parking lot. Dr. Julian Sparks quickly stepped in and
purchased the house for the Guntersville Historical Society for a cost of one hundred and
twenty five thousand. Fundraisers and donations paid off the property. (Ref. Mechanics and
Liens, book 1, probate, wills and deed records, GHS records, Mrs. Lily Powell Posey estate and
Ad Gleam)
Restoration began after a meeting in 2002 on the Gilbreath House lawn. In the process of
tearing out and cleaning, two secret compartments were discovered, but alas, no money was
found. Original to the home are the mantle, the upstairs Southern Cross doors and the old
plank flooring and walls in the downstairs northwest display room. Most of the doors down
stairs, the wood floors in the hall, parlor and living room are from an 1870’s remodel. The
dogtrot was enclosed at that time. Many of the old wide wall boards that remain, noted by a
former tenant to be brownish in color, showed signs of buttermilk paint. The old staircase
railing and newel post, while not original to the house, impressed representatives from the
Alabama Historical Commission. The ‘red’ 1960’s exterior asphalt siding revealed the original
Shanghai board and batten with hints of white and yellow paint. A light color is seen in a 1910
and 1950 photo. The house was described as yellow in 1900 on the Chandler map. Mrs. Helen
Cloud, born in the house, remembers a yellow exterior when she lived there in the 1930’s. In
2005 Mrs. Camille Bowman of the Alabama Historical Commission discovered several layers of
white paint over a layer of yellow and underneath that was a layer of red. The old chimney that
could not be saved for use, was fortified, then enclosed. Its old stone construction can be seen
through a framed display window. The outer stairs, built for rental purposes, were removed.
New energy efficient windows, heating and cooling, electrical and plumbing were installed,
and a new bath. David Hammock, local iron craftsman, constructed an iron fence copied from
an antebellum home in Huntsville Alabama to flank the memorial brick patio and
commemorative tablet out front. Period furnishings and light fixtures, both purchased and
donated, finish off the new home of the Guntersville Historical Society which held its first
officers meeting there in 2011.
Montgomery Gilbreath, the owner of the home at 353 ‘Back Street’, was a merchant, farmer,
court clerk, soldier of the Seminole War and Probate Judge. He was born Jan. 23, 1814 in East
Tennessee to John B. Gilbreath (1790) of Virginia and Sally Fields. His Grandfather Thomas
Gilbreath (1751), a Pvt. in the Revolution, was a son of Scottish immigrant Alexander
“Galbraith” (1720). In April 1861, Judge Gilbreath gave up his appointed post as the first
Probate Judge of the re Forganized Court of Marshall County, raised a company of 100 men
and on Dec. 11, and was elected their captain. After they reached Nashville, Tennessee and
mustered in the 49th he was elected Lt. Colonel. Already a veteran of the Florida (Seminole)
wars under Chisolm, he again went into war, this time in the battle of Shiloh, April 6th and 7th
of 1862, in Tennessee. In May, 1862 he resigned only to return home to northern raids and
skirmishes in his home town. Ten raids would be recorded as this little town was continually
surrounded by war. On July 29, 1862 his home in Guntersville received but survived a hit by a
cannon ball to the north wall when union officer Major Paramour’s troops aimed their Parrot
gun from a hill on the north side of the Tennessee River near present day Guntersville Bridge.
The house escaped destruction again on April the 12th and 17th of 1864, when Union General
T.W. Geary (later Gov. of Pa.) came down the Tennessee River by steamboat to destroy the boats
and ferries. On January 15, 1865 after the battle of Red Hill, federal marines from the USS
General Grant set fires in North Guntersville that devastated the town. John Alan Wyeth, in his
book With Sabre and Scalpel states “no more than half a dozen buildings left because they
housed the sick and those too weak to leave.”
While Guntersville was still recovering from the destruction of the civil war it suffered one of
the biggest floods in the county in 1867. Another record flood in 1917 reached 594 feet above
sea level. Again the house was spared. In September 2004 the huge old willow oak in front of
the house, dated about 1855 from its growth rings, was blown down, missed the Gilbreath
house but crushed the city building next door.
In spite of storms, floods, war, and wrecking bar, the old Gilbreath home appears as if ready
for whatever comes next, sure of its own solid bones and foundation. It is one of two in
Guntersville predating the Civil War along with the relocated Culbert cabin. Though it has lost
its original windows, long front porch and boxed upper gable it retains the “picturesque design
by Andrew Jackson Downing, who started the movement in the Hudson valley, which spread to
the whole country. It is significant in that very few homes of its kind exist in Alabama, with
north Alabama having only two others; the Boxwood in Talladega and the Croft house in
Madison, which was originally in Huntsville.”* In 2003 The Gothic Revival Gilbreath house was
placed on the Alabama Historic Register. (*Bob
Gamble: Alabama Historical Commission)
(*
The house has lasted to see its Gilbreath sons prosper; one a Judge and bank president, four in
the mercantile business, and one a soldier in the Spanish American War where he got “gold
rush fever”. The homestead owner, Lt. Colonel Gilbreath, was a participant and trustee in the
sixty three year struggle to bring the railroad to Guntersville. Due to his death he missed the
rumble of the train in 1892 as it cut along his back yard with the first passengers. Now his
home is neighbor to a son’s one hundred and fourteen year old house and a 1980’s facility on
the other side. It has felt the coming of the telephone, television, radio and computer. It
witnessed the building of the lake, the bridge and paved streets, the coming and going of
Hammers Department store and city parking meters. It survived the depression and waited for
the continuing succession of foreign wars to end and send its sons and daughters back home.
Gone is the garden and the stable. Horse and carriages have been replaced by computerized
cars that zoom by its front door on the way to the upper forty eight. There is the hum of a big
metal box in the basement that replaces the coal and wood bin and a strange beep is heard
when the front door opens, welcoming visitors who come to witness its survival as the Colonel
and wife Tempe, home again, look down from over their fireplace mantle.
The driving force behind the 2001 purchase and restoration of this old home was Dr. Julian
“Pete” Sparks, aided by Warren Jones, Larry Smith, Keith Finley and many other members of the
Guntersville Historical Society. Dr. Spark’s determination and enthusiasm led to large
contributions of funds and labor. From the smallest donation to the largest, our citizens and
three hundred thousand dollars have revived the old home and it now gives us a glimpse of the
history of our town and our people. It is the center point of the Guntersville summer walking
tour of historic homes and buildings, and houses historical displays, a gift shop, and books by
county historians. The main exhibits are the Civil War and Trail of Tears. On display are local
artifacts and the native Cherokee ceremonial dress worn by members of the Gunter family for
whom the town is named.
Sources: Marshall co Archives, Probate records, census, bible records, obits, Democrat newspaper, cemetery records, Gilbreath
house files, and the collection of records of from descendant sonny Lewis .Updated may 2014
The Colonel Montgomery Gilbreath home is open Saturdays from 10 until 12 and can also be made
available for group tours.