Slavery In Auburn

Baptist Hill cemetery is a part of Alabama’s first separate black community and is a critical part of Auburn’s black history. According to oral history, a white man gave most of the land in the 1870’s. Currently the cemetery is four acres and…

This image is a watercolor painting of the Holliday-Cary Home, also known as the Holliday-Carey House or the Cary-Pick House, in Auburn, Alabama done by Harold W. Eaton in 1933. The home was built in 1852 by Shelton. The painting shows the front…

The Halliday-Cary-Pick House was built by James Kidd in 1848. The home was owned by three prominent residents of Auburn. Dickinson Halliday was a planter who had moved to the town from Georgia. During the Civil War, the home was used as a hospital…

When the East Alabama Male College opened its doors in 1859, William James Samford was one of the first eighty students to enroll. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Samford enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army where he was soon promoted…

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Yancey was a fiery orator and politician who ardently defended slavery and secession. Representing Chambers County during the Alabama secession convention, he voted for the state to leave the Union and during the…

The emancipation of slaves, a widespread labor shortage, and the collapse of the Confederate financial system all coalesced to bring the cities of Auburn and Opelika to ruin at the end of the Civil War. It would be ten years before a new home would…

This historic home that sits on what is now South College Street was the site where the 14th and 18th Alabama regiments were mustered in 1861. William F. Samford, known as the “Penman for Secession” for his nationally published diatribes on…

Pebble Hill was the home of Nathaniel J. Scott and his family from 1847 to 1871. When Rousseau’s men swept through Auburn in July 1864, William Lowndes Yancey’s widow resided at Pebble Hill and Union soldiers looted the building because of her…

Wealthy planter Addison Frazer built the home in 1854 in a two-story Greek Revival style. Frazer owned over 100 slaves and grew cotton on 2,000 acres of land. He served on the board of the Auburn Masonic Female College and the East Alabama Male…