Montebrier

Montebrier was built in 1866–67 for John William Mallet, a renowned scientist and educator and former Superintendent of Confederate Ordnance Laboratories. He came to Brierfield to assist General Josiah Gorgas, former Confederate Ordnance Bureau Chief, in rebuilding the Brierfield Iron Works. Frequent visitors were Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and William J. Hardee. Mallet left in 1868 to assume a University of Virginia chemistry professorship. Gorgas left in 1869 following an appointment as vice-chancellor of the University of the South and leased the works to Thomas S. Alvis. Gorgas’s wife Amelia and children did not join him at Sewanee until 1870 and may have spent a brief time here in the house. The eldest son, William Crawford Gorgas, became Army Surgeon General and received international acclaim for controlling yellow fever in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and later ridding the Panama Canal Zone of the disease., Side Two , After purchasing the Brierfield Rolling Mill in 1880, C.C. Huckabee, a partner in the Bibb County Iron Company who had constructed the mill in 1862–63, and his daughter Hannah and her husband Robert L. McCalley occupied the house. The McCalleys owned the home until 1911. Over the next 18 years, the property had a series of owners and renters including the families of W.E. Goodwin, George N. Cooper, D.L. McElroy, and Robert A. Frederick. W.P. Yount, a building contractor working at Alabama College (University of Montevallo), renovated the residence and opened the Montebrier Club, hosting the first dance on September 13, 1929. The Club was short-lived; however, the name persisted and a year later, Alabama College sociology professor John Steelman bought Montebrier. Impressed with his handling of a labor dispute, Secretary of Labor Perkins recruited him to the U.S. Conciliation Service, where he became director in 1937. He later became President Harry Truman’s chief White House advisor with the title “Assistant to the President.” Steelman’s former wife, Jean Mitchell Pittman, sold the structure to Ruby Lee Latham in 1958. In 1964, Mike and Linda Mahan purchased and began restoring the home.