Riverdale, plantation house near Selma, Alabama, United States
Riverdale is a two-story wood-frame plantation house near Selma, Alabama, built in the Federal style in 1829 by Virgil H. Gardner. It is five bays wide, with a two-tiered, pedimented portico spanning the central bay. Architectural historians call it the most refined house of its period in Dallas County.
Virgil H. Gardner, a native of Jones County, Georgia, built Riverdale in 1829 for his bride Margaret Loise Aylett of Virginia. Their daughter Mary Gardner married Henry Quitman, son of former Mississippi governor John A. Quitman, in the house in 1854. After Virgil and Margaret died in the 1880s, W. P. Watts bought the plantation. Houston Alexander sold the house and about 1,500 acres to Hammermill Paper Company in 1961; the company offered it to the local historical society on condition it be moved.
Riverdale's name comes from the Gardner family plantation, and its social record centres on one documented event: in 1854 Mary Gardner married Henry Quitman, son of former Mississippi governor John A. Quitman, in the house. The wedding linked the Dallas County family to a prominent Mississippi political household.
Riverdale no longer stands on its original plantation site, which is now occupied by International Paper's Riverdale Mill, built in 1965. The house was disassembled in the 1980s and rebuilt off Alabama State Route 22, so visitors should look for it there rather than near the old grounds.
The house was disassembled and moved in the 1980s to a site off Alabama State Route 22, after Hammermill Paper Company offered to donate it to the local historical society on condition that it be relocated. Its former plantation site near Selma is now occupied by International Paper's Riverdale Mill, built in 1965.
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