Preserving the Pat at the Magee Farm with Living History part of Albama’s Past
In 1848 Jacob Magee built a farmhouse and related building constructed with black slave labor for his family. The construction of the house and buildings was so good that from that date to the present day the house has needed little help or repair from that day to the present. The two story building was the home of four different families over the decades before being designated a living history and museum site for the city of Kushla. The Magree Farm is one of those places that you will want to put on your Alabama travel itinerary.
Along side the main house there was also a store; post office, bathhouse and school room on the complex. Although the only remaining buildings are the house and the schoolroom – the history of those times lives on with the exhibits that are presented for you to see. Today one of the top Alabama attractions, when built, it was the largest private homestead for several miles when it was completed.
The primary homestead was designed with some fascinating designs. There is a front porch that has 2 sleeping room doors leading onto it. One of these bedrooms has a doorway on the porch but no entryway into the main portion of the house. It was designed to provide travelers and guests that were not family members a safe place to reside without them being able to access the family’s private home. The other bedroom has a door on the porch but also an entry that opens into the formal living area. Of course this extra bedroom was used by family members that arrived to visit or acquaintances that the family wanted to have access to the interior of the home.
There is another parlor that could be closed off with either a drape or by shuting the sliding pocket doors. The entryway of the house opened onto both the front and the back veranda. The school room was attached to the back veranada. This building is now the museum for the property. On the second floor are two large bedrooms, each including their own fireplace. For warmth, the house has a total of 5 fireplaces. Imagine cutting enough firewood to maintain 5 fireplaces running all winter!!
The kitchen was out back but connected to the remainder of the home by the rear porch. It was common to have the kitchen removed from the home proper to keep the heat out of the main house. Next to the cookhouse was the outhouse so when the outhouse needed to be used it could require quite a walk in the dark or cold to get to the outhouse when nature called.
The farmstead is also the location of the Living History and Battle Reenactment – both in the spring and the fall.
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