Skip to main content

Eight More Octagons

April 2023
1min read

I regret that Mr. Boulton did not stop by Clayton to inspect our nearly mint-perfect specimen (above right) , the only antebellum octagon house in Alabama, and the only true example of gravel-wall construction still standing in the United States. The house was built in 1859 by Benjamin Petty, a native of New York State, and had been lived in continuously by two families until 1981, when the town purchased it. It is listed on the National Registry. We have received grants for returning it to its original condition from the National Trust, the Alabama Historical Commission, the State of Alabama, and the CDBG program as well as donations from individuals. We expect to begin the restoration work shortly. We believe that our entry in the octagonal race is the only house surviving of its age, construction, and physical condition. None of the houses pictured in your article matches ours in these respects.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "December 1983"

Authored by: David McCullough

Harry Truman’s lifetime correspondence with his adored Bess opens a window on their time

Authored by: Judith Katten

George Eastman didn’t think the posters the movie companies supplied were good enough for his theater. So he commissioned a local artist to paint better ones.

Authored by: Kevin Brownlow

It was a suburb of orange blossoms and gardens, of gracious homes and quiet, dignified lives—until a regrettable class of people moved in.

Authored by: Edward Sorel

With the Depression pushing the studio toward bankruptcy, Warner Brothers had to resort to crime—and crime paid so well that the company was able to recruit the toughest guys that ever shot up a sound stage.

Authored by: Joseph Schrank

It was a great life being a contract writer for a major studio during the high noon of the American movie industry—but it could also be a nightmare. A survivor recalls the pleasures and ardors of working at 20th Century-Fox forty years ago.

Authored by: John Springer

Some of the best moments in hundreds of movies took place at Christmastime. And the author may have seen every one of them.

Was the murdered President one of our best, a man of “vigor, rationality, and noble vision” or was he “an optical illusion,” “an expensively programmed waxwork”? A noted historian examines the mottled evolution of his reputation.

Authored by: Harvey Ardman

The Normandie has been gone since World War II, but many people still remember her as the most beautiful passenger liner ever built. It is the saddest of ironies that she fled her native France to seek safety in New York Harbor.

Authored by: Elting E. Morison

With Epcot, Walt Disney turned his formidable skills to building a city where man and technology could live together in perfect harmony. The result is part prophecy, part world’s fair. Here, America’s leading authority on technological history examines this urban experiment in the light of past world’s fairs, and tells why it fails where they succeeded—and why that matters.

Authored by: Robert N. Linscott

How Hadley, Massachusetts, (incorporated 1661) coped with wolves, drunks, Indians, witches, and the laws of God and man.

Featured Articles

The world’s most prominent actress risked her career by standing up to one of Hollywood’s mega-studios, proving that behind the beauty was also a very savvy businesswoman. 

Rarely has the full story been told about how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

Often thought to have been a weak president, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or the political fallout.

Why have thousands of U.S. banks failed over the years? The answers are in our history and politics.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.