Moore-Hill House

Moore-Hill House The Moore-Hill House, also known as the Old Stagecoach Inn, is a private historic home located near present-day Sulligent, Lamar County. The home was constructed in 1834 along the old Andrew Jackson Military Road that was constructed after the Creek War of 1813-14 to transport troops and to promote commerce through the area. The home became known as the scene of the gruesome 1881 murder of Malinda Marchbanks Armstrong and was also allegedly a hiding place for the infamous train robber and Lamar County native Rube Burrow, who was on the run from the law.

The Moore-Hill House was originally constructed by a local carpenter named Jesse Little Taylor, whose name was written on a brick that is still visible in the upstairs fireplace. The home’s first occupant was James Moore, a veteran of Andrew Jackson’s army in the Creek War, and his family. The home later became the property of the Armstrong family.

In 1881, the home was inhabited by Ezekial Armstrong and his wife Malinda Marchbanks Armstrong. At the time, their son Winston Armstrong and his wife Eliza Terry Armstrong were living in the home as well. On a day soon after Eliza gave birth to her first child, Malinda was holding the new baby with Eliza nearby when, according to newspaper accounts (which were often unreliable), Cap Bankhead, a local African American who worked for the Armstrongs on the property, walked into the room where Eliza and Malinda were coddling the child. After attempting to wrestle the child away from Mrs. Armstrong, Bankhead then proceeded to kill Malinda with an ax, though local legend holds that it was a grappling hook. Moments after the attack, Winston Armstrong reportedly shot and killed Bankhead. Other accounts, however, claim that Bankhead was hanged from a tree in the front yard. After the death of Malinda, the Armstrong family was no longer comfortable living in the home and in December of 1881, they swapped homes with a Mr. A. A. Hill for a similar house across Bogue Creek.

According to another legend, the Moore-Hill House (then also known as the Old Stagecoach Inn) was used in spring 1889 as a hiding place by noted train robber Rube Burrow, who was the subject of a manhunt. (Burrow was born in Lamar County and spent his years as an outlaw robbing express trains across the South in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, the Indian Territory, and Texas from 1886 until his death in 1890.) The home remained in the Hill family until 1995, when Mrs. Darnell Hill sold it to Lt. Col. and Mrs. Dean Wilson. Also that year, the Alabama Historical Commission and the Alabama Preservation Alliance declared it one of Alabama’s Most Endangered Historic Places. The Davis’s have, over the years, restored the home, which is considered the oldest remaining building in Lamar County.

The home is located at 1804 Jackson Military Rd.

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