Hunter House (Mobile, Alabama)
Encyclopedia
The Bettie Hunter House is a historic African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 residence in Mobile
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...

, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It was the residence of Bettie Hunter, a former slave who grew wealthy from a successful hack
Hackney carriage
A hackney or hackney carriage is a carriage or automobile for hire...

 and carriage
Carriage
A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use and for comfort or elegance, though some are also used to transport goods. It may be light,...

 business she operated in Mobile with her brother, Henry. The fall of New Orleans during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 had made Mobile the South’s
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

 only major port on the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...

. Transportation of goods to and from the port depended on the city's teamster
Teamster
A teamster, in modern American English, is a truck driver. The trade union named after them is the International Brotherhood of Teamsters , one of the largest unions in the United States....

s and their horse or mule-drawn wagons. Bettie Hunter was part of a group of African Americans who recognized the opportunities in the carriage business and she
cornered this part of the transportation market in Mobile.
The Hunter House was built in 1878 and is an exceptional example of 19th century residential architecture for an African American in the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...

. The two-story Italianate
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...

 house matches Mobile’s white-owned residences of the period in scale and detail. Bettie Hunter died on November 2, 1879, at the age of 27. Her house had just been finished the year before. She was buried in Magnolia Cemetery
Magnolia Cemetery (Mobile, Alabama)
Magnolia Cemetery is a city cemetery located in Mobile, Alabama, United States. The cemetery is situated on and was established in 1836. From that time onward it served as Mobile's primary burial site during the 19th century. It is the final resting place for many of Mobile's 19th and early 20th...

in Mobile. She had no children and willed the property to her family.
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