Side 6 Old Homes, the Eliza Battle tragedy, and the Thompson Murders

Old Homes and Buildings in Pickens County

"Mr. M. Alexander lives now, right behind the Methodist Church. This house was built in eighteen and seventy-six, to be used as a parsonage for the Methodist Church. It's one of the oldest homes in Carrollton. Now the Carrollton Methodist Church itself was first organized in eighteen thirty-six, and the old building contained a slave gallery, and many of the blacks in this town were members of that church. The back part of the new sanctuary is the original, and the bricks of this section were made by slave labor. The brass bell on the west side of the main building has been in use for years and years. When the first church was built, it was shipped from England to Mobile, and up the Tombigbee River to Pickensville, and then brought by oxen into Carrollton to be placed in the, uh, position where it could be rung every Sunday morning.

The Jones home, of what we call the Old Pickens Academy, dates back to August the ninth, eighteen seventy-six. It dates back earlier than that, but that is the first advertisement that we find in an old newspaper advertising the Carrollton Male and Female Academy. It was in nineteen one that Mr. W. B. Curry purchased this house, and he and his family lived upstairs while the lower floor continued to be the Academy. There's an old carriage house standing next door to the Jones home, and in there is an old hearse, in fact, it's one of the first hearse so come to this county. It was first used to carry the body of Mrs. W. B. Curry to the old Mitchell Cemetery in Benevola in nineteen and fourteen.

Our Presbyterian Church here dates back to eighteen and thirty-nine. The present building was erected in nineteen oh one when the previous building had burned.

The Baptist Church was an outgrowth of the Big Creek, uh, Baptist Church, and was organized mainly by the Bostick family. The old first building has been torn down, and through the years another one was built, and then later another Baptist church was built. It was, the first church was built in the eighteen and fifties.

The Owings house, where Mary Etta Owings lives, dates back to about nineteen hundred, and was built by Mr. W. P. Owings, who was oper.., owner and operator of the old Phoenix Hotel at that time.

The Sherrod-Stancel House is still standing and is being used today as a center for elderly people, and, uh, a youth dayY, youth care center. This home was once one story, but it was later remodeled with the Victorian characteristics. The house was built by the Sherrod family before the War Between the States, and Martin L. Stancel, the Probate Judge here in eighteen fifty, married one of the Sherrod daughters, and after her death, married the other one, and he acquired the house and added the second floor.

There are many other places worth mentioning, but at this time I won't go into more, any more of the old homes. Most of the store buildings have been torn down through the years, and the only old building remaining is the one where the registrar's office, uh, is today. And the Roy Kelley's office, and the Mental Health, and, uh, I guess those are about the oldest store buildings in this town. There was once a probate building that stood over here on the corner where the service station stands today, but it burned, and when the new probate building was built it was built as a one story building, and later the second story was added to it."