Saunders~ Hall~ Goode Mansion

Saunders~ Hall~ Goode Mansion. . This mansion, located about one mile east, was placed on the National Register of Historic places 1 Oct 1974. Built by Turner Saunders (1782-1853) on property purchased 9 April 1833, the house may have an earlier construction date. Revolutionary War Veteran Thomas Saunders and Ann Turner were his parents. Turner was born in VA and moved with his first wife Francis (Dunn) to Lawrence County in 1821. After her death in 1824, Saunders married Henrietta Millwater, 1 July 1826. Considered to be an excellent example of Palladin design, the two-story mansion with a brick basement has been noted as resembling a Greek temple. Saunders, a noted Methodist preacher, was elected (1830) first president of LaGrange College some 10 miles to the southwest. On 28 Apr 1863, Gen. GM Dodge's Union soldiers burned this school (the 1st state charted Al college). On 12 Feb 1844, Saunders sold the house to Freeman Goode and relocated to Aberdeen, MS, where he died in 1853. Later owners included the Hall and Skeggs families. Turner's son, James E. Saunders, author of the first major history of Lawrence County, was aide and personal friend of Gen. Nathan B. Forrest. James E. built a plantation house c1860 known as Rocky Hill Castle, some 4 miles south of this site.