An 1860 Italianate mansion that served as a Civil War hospital and is now a state-owned house museum with a persistent unexplained presence at its front door.
917 W Barbour St, Eufaula, AL 36027
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Small admission fee for tours; see AHC website for current pricing
Access
Limited Access
Historic antebellum home with period interior; steps to main entrance
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1860 · Italianate antebellum mansion · Civil War hospital use · Alabama Historical Commission property · National Register of Historic Places
Edward Brown Young completed Fendall Hall in 1860 on a rise above Eufaula's Barbour Street, drawing on the Italianate style then fashionable among Alabama's cotton-era merchant class. The house's defining interior feature — a pair of Italian marble fireplaces — arrived via the port at Mobile and were hauled inland at considerable expense.
When Union forces threatened Eufaula during the Civil War, Confederate authorities briefly commandeered the mansion as a field hospital. The Young family recovered the house after the war and maintained ownership through the early twentieth century. Subsequent private owners kept the structure largely intact before the Alabama Historical Commission acquired Fendall Hall in 1973, listing it on the National Register of Historic Places and opening it as a state-operated house museum.
The mansion's architecture reflects the prosperity Eufaula briefly commanded as a regional commercial hub in the 1850s, when the Chattahoochee River trade brought significant capital to Barbour County. The AHC restoration preserved the original floor plan, mantlepieces, and much of the period millwork.
Sources
The most-cited account at Fendall Hall concerns a young woman in period dress who appears at the edge of the property, runs toward the front entrance, and disappears at the door — never entering. Caretakers and AHC staff have not identified a historical figure who matches the description.
Interior reports are more diffuse: doors on the upper floor open and close without mechanical explanation, cold spots appear in rooms with no air circulation, and full apparitions have been described by visitors and staff moving through the hallways before vanishing. The book Haunted Alabama Black Belt by Alan Brown and Docia Schultz Williams (2013) collected several firsthand accounts from people connected to the property during the AHC's stewardship.
Guided tours of the Italianate mansion with docents covering the Young family history, Civil War hospital use, and the building's architectural details including the Italian marble fireplaces. Self-guided viewing of exterior is free.
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