How many old Wilcox County homes have unique, unusual features that harken back to days gone by?

Old 'cooling board' at Sullivan Cabin.

My daughter and I rode over to Chatom the other day to visit the 2021 Chatom Indian Artifact & Collector Show. This annual event features thousands of Indian artifacts, and if you have even the slightest interest in Alabama history, I highly recommend that you make plans to attend next year’s show. Admission is free.

On the way home, we stopped for a few minutes at the old Sullivan Cabin, a historic “dog trot” log cabin on State Highway 56 at Wagarville. This old cabin is one of the oldest existing homes in Washington County and features a spraddle roof and hand-hewn timbers that still show the original axe marks. This home, which was built by a man named Gibeon Sullivan, is currently owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

The Sullivan Cabin also has one of the most unusual and unique features of any old home that I’ve ever visited in Alabama. On the front porch of the house, you’ll find what’s known as a “cooling board.” This authentic cooling board harkens back to the days of early Alabama history when there were no modern funeral homes or undertakers, a time period when family and friends had to prepare their loved ones for burial.

According to a display at the cabin, “when a loved one died, a family member or neighbor fetched the cooling board from Gibeon Sullivan’s front porch and used it to transport the body back to the Sullivan Cabin, where Gibeon Sullivan prepared it for burial. The cooling board is notched to keep it from slipping from the horse drawn wagon. It is believed that the cooling board was also used for viewing the body. Food was prepared and neighbors sat in the house or stood in the yard, talking in hushed tones, remembering the departed and comforting the bereaved.”

A historical marker at the cabin also notes that the cooling board turned Sullivan’s “front porch into a place of central importance to the Wagarville community. As one of the few homes in Washington County with a cooling board, the Sullivan Cabin became a community gathering place where people came to grieve, pay respects and find comfort.”

On our way home, I could not help but wonder if any of Wilcox County’s old houses have a cooling board or some other similar unusual or unique feature. Wilcox County is blessed with many old homes, some that even predate the War Between the States, and I would not be surprised to learn that they contain features that we would consider unusual today. I have heard that some of these old homes feature “haint paint,” old buggy ways, carriage houses and unique staircases, porches, windows and balconies, but they no doubt also have other unusual features.

In the end, let me hear from you if you know of an old Wilcox County house that has a “cooling board” or some other type of unusual feature. We may come to find out that there are more than one of these old cooling boards in Wilcox County, or we might discover something else even more odd. Let’s make an effort to document these unique aspects of Wilcox County history for the generations yet to come.