🎄🎄🎄🎄2009 December 6, Saturday, Belle Mont Mansion Tuscumbia and Walking tour of Mooresville, AL

Two of my grandchildren and I rode to the Belle Mont Mansion in Tuscumbia for the Plantation Christmas Event. 

This event offers entertainment and raises funds for further renovations of the mansion, which it desperately needs. 

It is a Jeffersonian style plantation home built in 1828 for Doctor Mitchell and sold to the prominent Winston family of Tuscumbia. 

The family abandoned it and soon fell into deteriorate. In 1983 the house and 33 acres was donated to the Alabama Historical Commission.

I parked my car along the wheat fields, along with several other cars.

There were a bus shuttling people to the mansion but my grandchildren and I walked along the gravel road to the mansion.

As we started up the gravel road, we saw the historic marker that read

Belle Mont Marker

Belle Mont Marker

Built between 1828 and 1832, Belle Mont is a foremost example of Jeffersonian Palladian Architecture in the Deep South and one of Alabama's first great plantation houses. 

It was build for Dr. Alexander W. Mitchell, a native of Virginia, and a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and one of the first large scale~ planters and slaveholders in this area. 

In 1833 this 1,680~ acre plantation was sold by Mitchell to another Virginian Native, Isaac Winston. Winston, also a prominent planter and strong supporter of the Confederacy, was the uncle of Alabama's first native-born Governor, John Anthony Winston. Belle Monte remained in the hands of Winston heirs until 1941. 

In 1983, the house and 33 surrounding acres were donated to the Alabama Historical Commission.

Belle Monte Mansion Christmas 2009

On the front door of the mansion was a green wreath with gold balls and a red ribbon. The white hand railing was covered in greenery, with red bows and orange-red and green balls. There was greenery above the door and on the front porch on the second floor.

Inside the Mansion there were green vines winding along the staircase leading to the second floor. There were vines, green plants and red apples over the fireplace and on other pieces of furniture.

There were women dressed in beautiful white and red ball gowns, and men were dressed in black suits.

In the dining area were a long table, a silver bowl full of greenery, a silver teapot full of hot cider, and a silver bowl full of punch. There were several silver trays of finger food. 

Women dressed in Red and White Christmas Ball Gowns 

We drank a cup of punch and helped ourselves to the finger food. 

On the walls were hung paintings of family members that had once gracefully walked in the rooms of this mansion, and a painting of the mansion was sitting on an easel.

 Finger foods

Belle Monte 

There was a curator in every room-filling our heads with the history of the plantation.

The book, Lady of the Lake by Scott was laid on a bedside table in one of the bedrooms. 

Gathered in the family room were men dressed in suits and women dressed in holiday ball gowns of red, and white. There were a couple of women playing Christmas tunes on flutes.

We walked upstairs where there was a display case showing the construction, layout of the mansion in its grander years.

We finished our tour and walked outside to get a better view of the three chimneys, the two tear, six, white column front porch. The house was built out of red brick, with six windows on the west side, four windows on the front with two front doors. The backside of the house had a root cellar, with the large landing of stairs leading to the ground. It had a large back porch with two of the bedrooms having doors leading outside.

I guess this was to get easy access to the outhouse.

Belle Monte Mansion Back porch 

Entrance to the Dining Room @ Belle Monte Mansion

Brick Church in Mooresville

Refreshments at Brick church Mooresville

Post Office in Mooresville

Historic homes in Mooresville

My grandkids and I rode to Mooresville to take the Christmas Walking tour. 

We toured the Post Office, the Stagecoach Inn, the Tavern, and the Brick Church. 

We walked up and down the streets of the small community enjoying the Christmas decorations. 

The Brick Church was open for the tour so we stepped inside where we enjoyed a cup of hot cider and a woman playing the piano.
The Post Office was opened for the tour and the employees showed how the post office worked and the post office is still used by the community.
The old tavern was opened with a fire burning in the fireplace, there was greenery on the mantel and a small library of books in the back room.

Stage Coach Stop 

The tour ended at 5:00PM by that time it was cold and dark outside.
The grandkids and I loaded into my car and I drove us home. 

I had spent a wonderful day with two of my grandchildren. We learned some local history about the Belle Mont Mansion and the historic town of Mooresville. I took lots of pictures and I hope the grandkids remember the time we spent on both tours.

We saw several historic markers telling the history of Mooresville. 

Mooresville Incorporated in 1818

Post office contains original call boxes 

Old tavern, 1817 used as a stagecoach stop

Red Brick Methodist church 1817

U. S. Gen. James A Garfield was stationed here 1862

White frame church is more than a century old 

Andrew Johnson was apprenticed tailor here

Neoclassic architecture

1971 by Alabama Society Daughters of the American Revolution 

Mooresville, Alabama Incorporated November 16, 1818

Mooresville Post Office, c.1840, is the oldest operational post office in the state of Alabama. It has served the community form the same building since its construction of sawmill lumber in 1840. The mailboxes and office furnishings are even older, having been transferred from the original post office in the Stagecoach Tavern. The mailboxes are numbered 1-48, and some families have had the same box numbers for several generations. The building is owned and maintained by the Town of Mooresville.

Mooresville Stagecoach Inn and Tavern

The Stagecoach Inn and Tavern were built c.1820 and served as the post office before the current post office was constructed around 1840. An Act of Congress on March 13, 1818, authorized mail delivery to and from neighboring Huntsville and necessitated the establishment of a post office in Mooresville. A road was built between the two towns, and horse and rider carried mail. The Stagecoach Inn and Tavern were listed on Tanner's Post Map of 1825 with supper priced at "2 bits." The original post office was located on the right side of the building and mail may have been deposited and received through the small window. This window is also believed to have been used for the after-hours sale of liquor. The first floor was used as a common room with an outside stairway leading to two sleeping rooms on the second floor. The Stagecoach Tavern is currently used as a museum and the official town hall.

Mooresville Brick Church

Completed by 1839 this Greek Revival Structure was probably under construction for several years. On November 18, 1838, Alabama's 2nd Governor, Thomas Bibb and his wife Pamela deeded this property to William K. Adams, Monroe F. Moses and James Allison trustees of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. This denomination retained the title but over the years permitted the Baptist and Methodist to meet here.

Outstanding religious leaders who preached here were Cumberland Presbyterians "Father" Robert Donnell, the early leader and Constantine Blackmon Sanders, the "X+Y=Z Preacher" as well as Methodist Clare Purcell later Bishop of North Ala., West Fla. and Central Conferences.

National Register of Historic Places Mooresville Historic District 4/13/72

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church

This faith was organized in Dickson County, Tenn., Feb. 4, 1810, as an outgrowth of the Great Religious Revival of 1800. Its founders were ministers of the Presbyterian Church who rejected the doctrine of election and reprobation. They formulated and published a “Brief Statement” setting forth the points wherein Cumberland Presbyterians dissented from the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Robert Donnell, one of the founding fathers of the church, was preaching in this area as early as 1810. About 1834 he moved from Tenn. to Mooresville and was largely responsible for the early growth of the faith locally.

Mary Ann Walton, a local benefactor, died in 1899 willing much of her estate in trust to the Presbytery. Her will was contested and upheld three times by the Alabama Supreme Court in Woodroof vs. Hundley.