BIBB-HUTCHENS HOUSE, Williams Avenue

This handsome Greek Revival home was completed ca. 1832, incorporating an earlier Federal house, ca. 1818. Gov. Thomas Bibb copied his Limestone Conty residence, Belle Mina, for his daughter, Adeline Bibb Bradley. The Beirne and the Butler families lived there over the years. In 1927 the house returned to the Bibb descendants who still occupy it. Sketched by Lee Harless, Jr. in 1978.

My favorite memory is of Christmas Eve when family members, young and old, would gather after the Christmas Festival at the Church of the Nativity. "Holiday supper", hosted by my Aunt Ellen (Newman) and Aunt Susie (Hutchens), meant a special children's table complete with thick creamy eggnog flavored with vanilla and special Christmas treats. We children played in the front hall where the big cedar tree stood with its colored lights and ornaments and piles of gifts beneath. The time came for the Hutchens children to hang their stockings from the mantel in their grandparents' room, and the rest of us went home to do the same. My children and I will always cherish such memories.

Mrs. Ronald (Anna Ruth White) Sparks