Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Who Slept In The First White House of the Confederacy?

The answer to the question about who slept in the First White House after the Davis family moved out is easy: lots of people! The House, as you know, was rented for Jefferson Davis . After he and his family moved to Richmond, the ownership of the "Jeff Davis House", as it was called,  passed from Willis Calloway to William Crawford Bibb to Archibald Tyson of Lowndesboro,  Alabama who maintained it as a "townhouse".

When Mr. Tyson died in 1873, his daughter, Sallie Tyson Render of La Grange, Georgia inherited it and she rented it out. By the turn of the century it had become a boarding house for train men.

 I mentioned in recent blogs how it was saved, moved, and re-opened in 1921. At that time Confederate veteran John Cheney moved into the house, to sleep there, to safeguard the relics, and to keep up the place. As far as I know he was the last person to actually live in the House.

No comments:

Post a Comment