Governer Robert Burns Lindsay and daughter Maud McKnight Lindsey Historic Markers

Maud Lindsey's home as it looks today

 Governor Robert Burns Lindsey July 4, 1824-Feb 13, 1902 

A native of Lochmaben, Scotland, Robert Burns Lindsey was Alabama's only foreign-born governor. He immigrated to North Carolina in 1844 and relocated to Tuscumboa in 1849, where he worked as a teacher and read law, obtaining admittance to the Alabama Bar in 1852. The following year, residents of Franklin County elected him to the Alabama House of Representatives. In 1854, Lindsay married Sarah Miller Winston, sister to John Anthony Winston, who served as governor from 1853 to 1857. the couple had nine children, four of whom survived to adulthood, among them educator and author Maud McKnight Lindsey (see other side). 

In 857, Lindsay won the election to the Alabama Senate. In 1861, he joined Colonel Philp D. Roddey's Fourth Alabama Cavalry, CSA. At war's end, voters returned him to the Alabama Senate. In 1870, Lindsey became the first Democrat elected governor of Alabama since the end of the Civil War. His turbulent two-year there in office amidst Reconstruction was beset by economic and political difficulties, compounded by the failure of a state-supported railroad venture. Declining to run for reelection in 1872, Lindsey returned to Tuscumbia, where he continued a limited law practice, hampered by ill health, until his death. 

Sponsored by the Maud Lindsay Study Club and The Colbert County Historical Landmarks Foundation Alabama Historical Association 2022.

Maud McKnight Lindsay
May 13, 1874-May 30, 1941

International educator and author Maud Lindsay was born at this home, then a frame structure in 1874. She was the daughter of Governor Robert B. Lindsay (see other side) and Sarah M. Winston Lindsey. 

In 1898, after working in a private kindergarten in Tuscumbia, "Mis Maud" crossed social barriers and established Alabama's first free kindergarten program in the working-class cotton mill district of East Florence. 

She remained the teacher and principal of the school for more than four decades. In 1900, Milton Bradley Company published Lindsay's first book. Mother Stories. She subsequently authored sixteen additional works, many of which reflected her childhood experiences in Alabama. Although she had no formal higher education, Lindsay became a sought-after speaker.

She lectured on the art of storytelling at New York University. Rebuffing many offers to teach elsewhere, including an invitation from renowned Italian educator Maria Montessori, Lindsey chose to remain in Alabama. Her childhood friend Helen Keller described her as "one of the truly progressive women of the southland, and an example of Alabama's true wealth and greatness." Lindsay was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1995. 

Maud Lindsey Kindergarten Florence, Alabama 

Maud McKnight Lindsey 
The Florence Free Kindergarten 

2016 Sunday, April 17 Athens Character Cemetery Stroll

Sunday from 2-5PM

Athens Cemetery

Caroline Page

Mrs. Caroline Preston Peck 
This strong woman settled in Rowland now Tanner with her family after the War of the south of Independence. She relied on her Methodist faith to keep the family together. 
The Peck families came from the north to settle in Athens. 

Rebekah Thompson Davis 

Mary Mason 
Mary served as one of the strongest supporters of the United Daughter of the Confederacy. Miss Mary explains the Confederate Circle and the Confederate monument.

Confederate Circle and Tombstones
The Confederate Circle in Athens City Cemetery contains graves of over 50 soldiers killed in or around Athens during the WBTS, 8 unknown. Around 1898 ladies of the local UDC were working in the cemetery when bones, believed to be soldiers, were found. The ladies felt these soldiers deserved a proper burial. In 1901 the local UDC chapter placed markers with initials of the soldiers on each grave. In 1994 the Chapter researched and ordered new markers with full names and Military Service. The markers were replaced with the joint effort of the SCV Camp 768 and UDC Chapter 198

Kristi Valls

Mary Norman Moore McCoy
She was twice President of what is now Athens State University when she was as a single young woman and later as a mature widow with four stepchildren. 

Frank Travis

Ortho Frazier
He was born a slave but was able to buy his freedom. He was a cobble that mad and or repaired shoes and boots for Confederate and Yankee troops and civilians.

Kathy Horton Garrett

Rebecca Maclin Hobbs
Mother of Captain Thomas Hubbard Hobbs and a very stalwart supporter of the Athens Female Academy and the Athens First Methodist Church 

Dr. David Griggs

Thomas Turpentine
He joined the Confederate Army at the age of 13 and served until the surrender of his regiment in Selma. He lived in Nashville after the war in the newspaper business but upon his return to Athens, he went into the grocery business with his father. 

Glenn Hall

Jonathan Adams
He originally bought his family to Limestone County on a flatboat down the Elk River before it was legal for a white man to buy land. The Federal soldiers arrested him and burned his house and crops. He later returned was able to legally buy land and settle here

Athens Dulcimers

First formed in 2003 they meet the First and Third Monday of each month to play and practice. 

Dana Hickman

Emily Horton Sr
Her husband was a Confederate Soldier and later Probate Judge of Limestone County but her son Judge JE Horton Jr became world-famous for his brave ruling int he "Scottsboro Boys" trial. 

Carol Cordero 

Kathy Lane Townes 
A local girl who married one of the officers of the Union Occupation forces. 

Al Elmore

Chief Justice Thomas McClelland 
He served as a register in the chancery of Limestone County from 1874-1876. Served Alabama Senate for two terms. In 1884 he was elected State Attorney General. He became Chief justice in 1898 and served until his death in 1906.

Peggy Allen Towns

Emily Frazier
She became a land-owning free black lady. The soldiers were admonished to leave her and hers alone. 

Joe Curtis

General Hiram Higgins
He was a brick mason, a freemason and an archaic who organized and led a company of soldiers and fought in the Mexican-American War. 

Beth Ham

Margaret Beckham Nixon
She stood her ground in refusing to give all her meat stored in the smokehouse. 

Billy Ward

Robert Beaty Mason
Grandson of Robert Beaty who served in General Roddy's "Bull Pups" when he was 16. He started the development of the town of Bismarck. 

Jerry Barksdale 

Daniel Barksdale
He was a Secessionists until after the occupation and "Sack of Athens" by Union Soldiers under Colonel Turchin. 

Robert Reeves

Robert Donnell 
He was a Cumberland Presbyterian Circuit Rider and one of the founders of the Athens First Presbyterian Church