The History of Weeden House
The Weeden House was built in 1819, the same year that Alabama became a state. The house is considered a superb example of Federal-style architecture, influenced by the designs of the English architect Robert Adam.
The home was built by Henry C. Bradford, who came to Huntsville from Nashville and established a mercantile business on South Side Square. He lost his business during the Panic of 1819 and relocated to Arkansas. Owners in the next years included John McKinley, who later became an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and banker-planter Bartley M. Lowe. Dr. William Weeden bought this house in 1845 and it remained in his family until 1956. The home is named in honor of Dr. Weeden’s youngest child Maria Howard Weeden, whose paintings and poetry are exhibited here.
Dr. Weeden first settled in Marengo County, Alabama, where he raised a family of five children. After his first wife died, he married Jane Urquhart Watkins, a young widow whom he met on a visit to his sister in Lawrence County, Alabama. He then moved to Madison County in 1832 where he purchased land on a plot now known as Weeden’s Mountain just south of Huntsville and it is currently part of the land held by Redstone Arsenal. Dr. Weeden’s move to town was prompted by the realization that his five children by his second wife were of school age. Within a year after the Weedens moved to town, Dr. Weeden died suddenly on January 13, 1846 while on a trip to New Orleans. His widow was left to care for five small children. The sixth child, Maria Howard, arrived six months after her father’s death, on July 6, 1846. Because Dr. Weeden had been a prosperous planter, his wife and children lived comfortably on the income from his estate until the Civil War reduced them to poverty. When Huntsville was occupied in April 1862, the Weeden home was requisitioned by the Union forces for army officers’ quarters. For a time, Mrs. Weeden and her daughters (Kate and Howard-they were teenagers at the time) lived in the servants’ quarters, but they eventually decided to go to Tuskegee, Alabama to live with Jane, the oldest daughter who had married William T. Reed. After the war, Mrs. Weeden divided the real property of the Weeden estate among her children. She deeded the home to her unmarried daughters Kate and Howard.
The site was restored during the mid to late 1970s and opened as a museum in 1981.Today the house is owned by the City of Huntsville and rented and operated by the Twickenham Historic Preservation District Association (THPDA).