The house at 12 Main stands on Lot 2 of the original town
plat of James Clemens' land that became the City of Madison. Lot 2 was first purchased at the October 5,
1868, Clemens estate auction by Hamilton G. Bradford. The property changed hands many times until
Seymour and Indiana Doolittle built their home here. They also purchased in an 1876 auction the
adjacent Lot 1, which had been bought at the 1868 auction by John J.
“Studdivant” (Sturdivant) of Limestone County. The Doolittles likewise purchased Lots 3 and
4 that had initially been purchased by Theodorick S. Clay, a brother of Thomas
J. Clay and Andrew Clay, all of whom appear in the history of Madison. Andrew died in the Civil War while his family
lived in Limestone County in the Shoal Ford area. However, Andrew's widow Sarah Russell Webb
Clay moved into Madison and ended up purchasing Lots 7, 8, 9, and 10 by
1869. Theodorick and his wife Jane
purchased Lots 17 and 18 for their house across the tracks near Thomas J. Clay.
Sarah Russell had married Robertson Webb, a man 41 years her
senior. In the 1850 census she was 24,
and he was 65. They had several children
together in addition to being guardians of the three Clay brothers, who were
children of Robertson's sister (or daughter?) Nancy Webb Clay. After Robertson passed away, Sarah married
Andrew Clay, one of the matured children that she and Robertson had raised, but
who was still closer to Sarah's age.
More of Sarah's story is told in relation to the Clay House at 16 Main
Street.
The Doolittles built a log house on Lot 2 and operated a
large blacksmith shop on their adjacent However, in Madison County of Alabama he
married for a second time in 1875. His
second wife was American Indiana Pocahontus Gewin, a member of the Gewin family
who lived with the Chickasaw Indians in Mississippi for a time but became a
postmaster family of long duration in Madison from 1875 to 1915. In 1902 the Doolittles sold Lots 1, 2, 3, and
4 to Charles and Maggie Strong and J. A. Strong (an unmarried man). The Strongs were also blacksmiths, and they
added a gasoline-powered gristmill to the blacksmith operation on the property
by 1913. The original Doolittle log home
burned in 1905, but with help from the townspeople, a new house was constructed
on the lot within the same year.
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| Historic Bailey family cabin in home of Dr. Charles Whitworth |
The Strong house was extensively remodeled by Thomas and
Sara Landman Whitworth, who purchased it in 1952. Both Whitworths passed away in 2008, and then
the property became owned by Lottie S. Downie but occupied by David Ballard and Daniel Stagner, co-owners of the
Animal Trax exotic pet store beside the railroad tracks on Church Street in
Madison. Still, the older residents of
Madison associate the house at 12 Main with Sara Whitworth as its resident
owner of many years.
Sara Landman Whitworth was a
descendant of William Landman, who is buried on Redstone Arsenal in a family
cemetery on his land. William was a son
of a German immigrant, and he patented 160 acres of arsenal land in 1813,
owning 240 acres by 1815. His children
included Perlina, who married Joshua H. Beadle, a prominent Madison-area
landowner who had a store in Huntsville.
Another child of William was George Landman, who lived beside three
Beadle families, including Abraham Beadle and his nephew Joshua. George had a son James Henry Landman, who
worked as a clerk for six years in the store of Joshua Beadle. James was later assistant quartermaster in
Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s command. James became Madison County’s Tax Assessor in
1880. By his second wife, James had at
least four sons, including Charles T. Landman, who was the father of Sara.
Thomas Jerome Whitworth was
licensed to marry Sara Landman on March 1, 1950, per Madison County Marriage
Book Volume 95, page 22. Sara Whitworth
was best known to Madison residents as the owner of Whitworth Realty, operating
out of the oldest storefront in town, at 110 Main Street. As advancing years curtailed Sara’s active
business participation, her realty office became for a time an art gallery of
her son “Jerry” (Thomas Jerome, Jr.), of Paris, France. Jerry himself paints, as well as collecting
art in Europe and New York. Another son,
Dr. Charles Darwin Whitworth, is a local veterinarian, who lives in a house on
Mill Road that incorporates and preserves the two-story log cabin of James and
Sarah Bailey. That log cabin is almost
certainly the oldest house in the Madison area, if not all of northern
Alabama. It is believed to date back
before 1818, when it served as the first stagecoach stop on the route from
Huntsville to Mooresville at Bailey Springs.
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| Sara Whitworth in her office at 110 Main Street in 2004 |
The Whitworth heritage of the area
goes from Thomas Jerome to Arthur David, called “Dutch” Whitworth. Dutch married Leona Alvada Sexton in 1912 and
had seven children: Brazzie (died young), Arthur David Jr. (“Shine”),
Jeffolene, John Marion (“Buck”), Kathryn, Thomas J., and Emma Jeanne. Shine married Edna Doris Tuck, Jeffolene
married Stanley Vance, Buck married Willie Metta Strong, Kathryn married Jack
Lewter, and Emma Jeanne married Marshall McAfee. Dutch’s father was John David Whitworth, who
married Emma Virginia Tribble in 1896 and had eleven children. Emma was a daughter of Robert Donnell Tribble
and Mattie Gooch (granddaughter of Roland and sister of William Tell Gooch, who
married John David’s sister Ada).
John David Whitworth was a son of
William Whitworth and Mildred Bowers, who were married in 1858. Mildred was a daughter of David Bowers. William’s middle name is reported as Jason,
Jansen, and Jefferson in various records.
He was a son of Daniel Whitworth and Elizabeth Dedman, who were married
in 1833. Elizabeth was a daughter of
Madison County pioneer Francis Dedman.
Of John David Whitworth’s siblings, Mattie Susan married Madison
entrepreneur Jim Williams and lived at 19 Front Street, Laura married William
Dublin, Ada married William Tell Gooch (brother of Mattie Gooch Tribble, mother
of John David’s wife Emma), Archie married Mattie Trotman, and Charles Hatton
married Maggie Donaldson. John David’s
father William J. had siblings Samuel Thomas, James Edmund, Elizabeth, Martha
Ann (married Charles Carter), Powhatan, John, and Carter or Cortes (also
known as Toby) Whitworth. Samuel
married Ann Carter and was severely wounded at Cold Harbor during the Civil
War, while Powhatan was killed at Chickamauga.
Daniel’s father was Rowland Whitworth, earliest known of the line. Rowland married Martha, a daughter of Daniel
Walthall, in Virginia in 1790. Their
children besides Daniel were Jane, Thomas (who married Susannah Winn),
Nancy (who married Walter Aday), William, Sophia, Elizabeth, Edmund, and
John (who married Francis Alice Watson).
John, Edmund, Elizabeth, and Nancy are all known to have come to Madison
County, as well as Daniel Whitworth and his descendants. Perhaps no other pioneer family was so
extensively integrated by marriages into the fabric of Madison.
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| Below are shown the 2012 senior Madison Belles: (L-R) Ramsey Griffin, Juliana Johnson, Alecia Eidsaune, and Joylyn Bukovac at 12 Main Street. |
