You are invited to usher in the holiday season with a special Christmastime tour of homes presented by The Halliburton Family. The evening of Saturday, December 14, 2024 from 4:00PM until 8:00PM will feature Oaklands Mansion dressed in all of its holiday splendor. This special holiday tradition will take you through Murfreesboro’s East Main Street Historic District, to some historic homes on adjoining streets and then to Oaklands Mansion. The Middle Tennessee State University Raider Express will make the rounds at no charge to our guests. You are also welcome to drive yourself and park on the street sides following all City of Murfreesboro parking regulations. Free parking is also available at Oaklands Mansion and Oaklands Park. The Visitors Center lot is designated for our guests with ADA needs. The City of Murfreesboro no longer allows parking on the grass at Oaklands Mansion or Oaklands Park.
At Oaklands, Murfreesboro Little Theatre members will be found throughout the mansion sharing short stories and special tidbits of information about the historic structure. Oaklands Mansion staff and board members will greet you and further discuss this nationally registered historic site and its impact on our community.
In the front parlor, Santa will greet guests of all ages for photographs. Elaine Winters and Rob Pearcy from The Home Sweet Home Band will play Christmas standards and old holiday favorites. Oaklands Museum Shop will be open for unique holiday shopping.
Local food trucks will be parked at Oaklands Mansion where seating will be provided as well as a self-serve s’mores bar. Christmas face painting will be available for kids of all ages in Maney Hall.
Admission is $30.00 per adult and $10.00 per student ages 6-12. The evening is free for ages 5 and under. Please purchase admission online or in the museum shop by 4:00PM Friday, December 13th.
To inquire about including your property, or to sponsor the event, please email events@oaklandsmansion.org or call 615-893-0022.
Below are brief descriptions and photographs for some of the homes on the 2024 Candlelight Tour of Homes. Scroll down or click one of the blue links below to jump to a specific home!
The Spence-Alexander-McGaughey-Crockett-Kerr Family Homeplace
Researched by Barry Lamb
Marmon Spence, a name synonymous with success during the days of antebellum Murfreesboro, was successful in terms of material gain that has been handed down and transferred from generation to generation until present time. The south side of the town square was for many years known as the Spence block due to the ownership by the family of many of the business houses located there.
Mr. Spence was born in 1798 of Irish ancestry. Little is known of his childhood or early adulthood. He was married in 1826 to Sarah Wasson of Murfreesboro. He and his wife were the parents of three daughters and two sons. He was active in local governmental affairs, serving four terms as alderman and six terms as the town’s treasurer during the 1830s and 1840s. He also served as the mayor of the town from 1834-1835. Spence not only left a legacy of property ownership on the town square, but it is believed he also built the two-story brick house which is the subject of this writing that is presently located at 406 North Academy Street. Constructed circa 1840, that house has endured the test of time and stands today as a fine representation of the architecture of that day.
Following the death of Mr. Spence at the young age of 48, his wife and family continued to live in the home until the death of Mrs. Spence in 1857. The home was then purchased at a chancery court sale of the estate by John D. Alexander.
John D. Alexander as born in the Milton community of Rutherford County in 1813 to Andrew M. Alexander Sr. and Nancy Doran Alexander, early settlers of that community. He was married to Mary R. Baird in 1837 and six children were born of that union. Alexander was a successful planter in his community and represented the Trimble (17th) district of Rutherford County as a magistrate in the county court from 1842-1848. His wife died in the 1851 and he married his wife’s sister Violet L. Baird, the following year. The second wife died a year later and a third woman, Emelia Moore, was persuaded to marry him in 1857. Son after that marriage, Alexander purchased the Academy Street house, perhaps for his new bride.
It is not clear how long the Alexander family resided in the house. By 1860, he and his family were living in Franklin County, Tennessee and he was living there at the time of his death in 1870. This begs the question: Who lived in this house from 1860 until 1865, when he sold the house to his son-in-law. Did Alexander live in Franklin County briefly and move back into the house during those years? It likely served as a military hospital following the Battle of Murfreesboro in January 1863. Union officers may have commandeered the place as headquarters as so often happened. Sometimes, white refugees and former slaves took over abandoned homes during the war if it was indeed abandoned by Alexander and his family. Whatever the case may have been, it is recorded in deed records that Mr. Alexander sold the place to John Liburn McGaughey, the husband of his daughter, Abigale Minerva Alexander, in 1865, around the time of the couple’s marriage.
McGaughey was a native of Knox County Tennessee. It is believed that he came to Murfreesboro following the war and became involved in a furniture retail business in that town. He also served as town alderman in 1875. He and Abigale were the parents of six children. He later moved his family to Atlanta, Georgia where he worked a butcher and lumber dealer. He sold the house to Allen B. and Louisa Hall Crockett in 1873. Allen Battle Crockett was a descendant of one of Rutherford County’s notable early families. His father, Overton Washington Crockett, was a War of 1812 soldier, and his mother was Evalina Augusta Smith of the Springfield plantation, located near the Blackman community. Allen and Louisa Crockett were married in 1851. After spending many years in his native Salem community, Crockett and his family moved to Murfreesboro where he became a town merchant. The house was sold by the Crockett family to H. H. Kerr in 1896 following the death of Mrs. Crockett in 1894.
When Kerr purchased the house, he likely had no inclination of thought that it would be the home of four generations of his family that would span 122 years into the future. Henry Harrison Kerr was born a couple of miles southeast of Murfreesboro in 1840 to Wilson Hugh Kerr and Mary Ann Edwards Kerr. He served in Company F, 4th (Starnes’) Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, CSA, during the Civil War. He married Alice Elizabeth Jenkins of the Marymont plantation in 1866. He was the proprietor of a grocery and liquor business on the town square for many years. Active in local political affairs, he served as town alderman from 1874-1875 and as mayor of Murfreesboro in 1876. He married his second wife, Elizabeth Jordan Wilson, in 1884 and they became the parents of five children. Following the death of Elizabeth in 1938, the house was inherited by one of their daughters, Kathrin, and her husband, Albert Derry Riggs.
Albert Derry Riggs was a native of the Salem community of Rutherford County. He moved to Murfreesboro during the 1920s and became an assistant manager of the United Freightliners Company. He later became the manager of the Production Credit Company, located in the old Jordan Hotel/Apartments building on East Main Street. His wife, Kathrin, lived in her family’s home for 93 years before moving into a nursing home. She sold the home to her grandson, Neil McClain, in 1997. Neil has the distinction of being a member of the last graduated class of the Murfreesboro Central High School in 1972. He and his wife, Beth Anna, were the last generation of the Kerr family to reside in the house. The place was sold to Alan and Beth Morris in 2018 and the couple have done a remarkable job in restoring one of the town’s most historical houses.