Alfred Hatch Place at Arcola

The Alfred Hatch Place at Arcola, also known as the Arcola Plantation and locally as the Half-house, is a historic plantation house and historic district on the Black Warrior River several miles northwest of Gallion, Alabama. It is located on land first settled by Frederic Ravesies, in what was once the Vine and Olive Colony town of Arcola, founded by French immigrants in the early 19th century.[2] This area of Hale County was part of Marengo County prior to the creation of Hale in 1867.[3]

Alfred Hatch Place at Arcola
The plantation house in 2011
Nearest cityArcola, Alabama
Coordinates32°33′59″N 87°46′12″W
Built1856
ArchitectAlfred Hatch
Architectural styleGreek Revival
NRHP reference No.87001784[1]
Added to NRHPJanuary 6, 1988

History

The main house was built by Alfred Parker Hatch in 1856. The house was the center of his 3,000-acre (12 km2) plantation, purchased a few years before from his brother Lemuel D. Hatch during a period of financial difficulty.[3] Alfred Hatch was born on October 14, 1799, in Craven County, North Carolina. He married Elizabeth Vail Blount on May 8, 1822, in Craven County. They had three boys and three girls together, with all still living by the time of the American Civil War. The Alfred Hatch family migrated to Alabama in 1840. Alfred Hatch established several large plantations, most notably the one here at Arcola and Elm Ridge near Greensboro. Hatch owned a total of more than 200 slaves. Elizabeth Hatch died before the end of the Civil War and Alfred remarried to Victoria Jones Walker. They had one daughter together in 1873. Alfred P. Hatch died on January 30, 1879. He left most of the estate to his second wife, creating a rift between her and the children of his first wife.[4]

Architecture

The Hatch Place is a rare Alabama example of a temple-form house in the Greek Revival style. The house is a three-story brick structure, with massing suggestive of a pseudoperipteral building. The front facade features a monumental tetrastyle Doric portico across the front, with a full-width cantilevered balcony under the portico on the second level. A Tudor arch window is centered in the pediment over the portico.[3] The plantation was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 6, 1988, due to its architectural and historical significance.[1]

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  2. Smith, Winston (1967). Days of Exile: The Story of the Vine and Olive Colony in Alabama. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: W. B. Drake and Son. pp. 76–77.
  3. Marengo County Heritage Book Committee (2000). The heritage of Marengo County, Alabama. Clanton, Alabama: Heritage Publishing Consultants. p. 14. ISBN 1-891647-58-X.
  4. Benners, Augustus; Glenn M.; Virginia Linden (2007). Disunion, war, defeat, and recovery in Alabama: The journal of Augustus Benners, 1850-1885. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. pp. 16–17. ISBN 978-0-88146-056-8.
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