HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-13-2022 Historic Preservation Committee Meeting MinutesFairhope Historic Preservation Committee
Monthly Meeting Notes
April 13 , 2022 9 :30 a .m. Fairhope History Museum
Attendance : Gary Gover, Mara Hunter, Andrew Ousley, Skip Jones , museum liaison Gabriel
Gold -Vukson (Museum Liaison ). Guest:
Not Present: Jay Robinson
Call to order: Gary Gover, 9 :31
Old Business
• Minutes approved , March
• Discussion of May 19 Workshop-Alabama Historic Commission will present slide show at
the Baldwin County Campus building .
-County Historic Development Commission (Preservation Plaque Process): Skip will
present 15 -20 Minutes , and notes that Wayne Dyas is the liaison historic development
commission .
New Business
• William Alfred Lewis House : After a news story on NBC15 , the developer reached out to
Corey Martin , who through Cecil Christianberry contacted the superintendent of schools
to see if the house could be moved to the Anna T. Jeanes site as an education building .
FHPC reached out to the Alabama Historic Commission to learn about grants to help
with the efforts . Subsequently Theo Moore from the Black Heritage Council reached out
to Corey M ., and is now working to get the house into the NHR. [postscript-the effort to
register the house with NHR is delayed until the owner expresses interest].
o Within our new mission what steps can we take to help efforts underway? Skip
Jones to contact the developer. Mara Kozelsky to pursue further historic research
on the property. [Relevant documents relating to the Lewis family can be found in
the Single Tax archive, including E.B. Gatson 's research notes , which offer more
detail than his articles on the subject. Additionally, research revealed that the
historical survey had some inaccuracies , and dates did not always coincide to
Baldwin County property records. Baldwin County records office ind icated that it
no longer had the original records and assessors estimated many dates for older
properties].
• The Summit Inn
o Small Business looking into the historic rehabilitation credit. Skip will meet with
owner to ascertain our ability to help with the application .
• Single Tax presentation about mission change (super-short), to the FSTC April 13
evening meeting. [Post-script: Subsequently, MK met with the Single Tax archival
committee to learn about their remarkable progress in verifying the history-survey and
recording local history of FSTC homes in the on-l ine archive.]
Meeting ended : Gary Gover, 10 :25 a .m.
309 Ingleside
The house at 309 S. Ingleside is known as the homestead of the Lewis family, freed
slaves who settled in Fairhope decades before the town became incorporated. After
emancipation , the family migrated from a plantation in Mississippi to Baldwin County,
where they worked an eighty-acre farm bounded on one side at the corner of
present-day Fairhope and Section Street. The house was built by William Alfred Lewis ,
who was born into slavery on December 18, 1858 in Meridian Mississippi. Along with his
mother Nancy Lewis, notably featured in Paul Gaston 's Women of Fairhope , William
Alfred Lewis migrated to Baldwin County with his father John, and sister Betty, also born
into slavery. Working the land and in local industries , the Lewis family contributed
substantially to the early development of Fairhope. The Single Tax Colony acquisition of
land in Fairhope reduced the Lewis family tract from 80 acres to 40 acres.
Paul Gaston recorded William Alfred Lewis 's history in "Irony in Utopia : the Discovery of
Nancy Lewis ," and notes that William Alfred Lewis appeared in the Alabama census of
1870 as an 11 year old child . He again appeared as a turpentine hand in 1880.
Eventually, William Alfred Lewis married Rosetta Young, daughter of Parker Young,
another long term resident of Fairhope who shared in the 40 acre Lewis tract. A picture
of William Alfred Lewis with his descendants at 309 S. Ingleside can be found at the
Fairhope History Museum , also in the Images of America : Fairhope book by Cathy
Donelson, with a forward from Fannie Flagg.