Griffith, Robert G., Sr., House
1204 Cty. Rd. 25, Summit, ALThe Griffith house is a well-preserved early T house in Blount County, Alabama. It is among the few such houses still existing in the largely upland agricultural region.
The Major Robert G. Griffith house is significant under Criterion C for architecture. The only surviving early T house in Blount County, the dwelling exemplifies the domestic architectural setting of a moderately wealthy upland agricultural family in Appalachian Alabama. The construction materials, frame with cladding, were exceptional in an area where log domestic architecture predominated well into the 20th century. Moreover, the faux decorative treatment of the interior represents one of the few survivals of such work, especially in a vemacularized variation, so far discovered anywhere in the state. Finally,the Griffith house is one of the few mid-19th century dwellings of its type with which the name of a particular house wright or“mechanic" can be associated: that of Joseph Britton (sometimes spelled Brittain). Modifications have not obscured the essential character of the house, and are, themselves, indicative of how a highly representational upland house type has been modified and adapted through several generations.
The Griffith house is significant under Criterion A for settlement. Both the migration pattern represented by its original owner, the first Robert Griffin Griffith - from Pennsylvania down the great Appalachian valley into northeastern Alabama -as well as the inherent physical character of the house and its natural setting, exemplify important aspects of upland Anglo-American culture as it existed and eventually spread from the Mid-Atlantic region to the edge of the Deep South: a culture altered and acclimatized in numerous ways but fundamentally coherent. The Griffith Homestead is apparently unique in Blount County as an intact upper-echelon house/farm surviving from the earliest period of settlement to the present.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.