Auburn University Professor Dr. Mark Wilson talked about one of the more historically interesting homes in the east Alabama region at Sunday’s quarterly meeting of the Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society (CVHS). Located in the heart of Auburn, the Scott-Yarbrough House is more than 175 years old.

If its walls could talk, the stories they would tell.

The raised, cottage-sale home was built in 1847, some nine years before the East Alabama Male College hosted its first classes. The fledgling college would grow into what is today Auburn University, an internationally renowned seat of learning with close to 35,000 students working toward degrees in more than 150 different undergraduate degrees offered in 12 colleges.

“The Scott-Yarbrough House is a place that’s closely tied to  Auburn history,” Dr. Wilson said. “A lot of prominent people have lived or visited there over the years.”

In the Zoomcast presentation, Wilson took CVHS members and guests on a virtual tour of the home. It’s widely known today as Pebble Hill. It’s not known when or why that name originated, but references to the home as Pebble Hill go back to at least 1912, the year the Yarbroughs acquired the home. It was referred to by that name in early Lee County newspapers.

The city of Auburn was founded in 1836. Construction on what became known as the Scott-Yarbrough House began ten years later in 1846 and was completed the next year. At the outset, it was a plantation owner’s home. Nathaniel J. Scott and wife Mary were the first to live there. They were among a large number of white settlers moving into the east Alabama region, which had long been home to indigenous tribes such as the Creek Indians.

The Scotts helped build the town of Auburn, which was founded by Nathaniel Scott’s half-brother, John J. Harper. They were members of the town’s Methodist church and in 1839 Nathaniel became a city official, serving as a town commissioner. He later served in the state legislature.

In 1846, the Scotts purchased approximately 100 acres of property just east of downtown Auburn for $800. They started work on Pebble Hill shortly after that.

Some parlors inside the Scott-Yarbrough House recount the history of the Creeks in the region. There are portraits of noted tribal leaders such as William McIntosh, Menawa and the Creek leaders who traveled to Washington D.C. in 1825 to discuss a proposed treaty involving land cessions. The prints on display are reproductions of the oil paintings done by noted early American painter Charles Bird King (1785-1862). King is famed for his portraits of prominent Native American leaders and tribesmen.

Wilson said that some of King’s works were destroyed in a fire at the Smithsonian. Another noted American painter, Henry Inman, had copied them. His paintings are the closest to the originals that are still in existence.

What’s noteworthy about the paintings is their depiction of the historical accuracy of the period. Wilson notes that the long-time stereotype of the American Indian is of those who lived on the Great Plains and hunted buffalo. They tended to wear buckskin clothing and colorful headdresses.

“What distinctive about the portraits are the red and blue colors the men were wearing,” Wilson said. “It reflects a European heritage. Many of the Native American leaders of the period had European fathers.”

“Dr. Katherine Braund of the Auburn history department has done some excellent work on this,” Wilson said.

Dr. Braund is the Hollifield Professor of Southern History Emeritus at Auburn. She’s the author of “Deerskins and Duffels: The Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-Americans, 1685-1815.”

Another parlor in the house has items relating to the Poarch Creeks in southwest Alabama. While most Creeks were forced westward in the 1820s and 1830s, the Poarch Creeks remained in Alabama by hiding out in the swamps and pine thickets of the Alabama River Delta. They came forward in the 1920s, and it was decided they could stay in what had long been their home.

According to Dr. Wilson, the Poarch Creeks are today the fourth largest federally recognized tribal group in the U.S.

One interesting item in the Poarch Creek parlor is a framed mat showing how baskets were made from river cane. Some of the cane that’s in the frame is from Loachapoka and some from Oklahoma.

The Poarch Creeks have kinsmen living in Oklahoma. “They consider Georgia and Alabama their ancestral home,” Wilson said.

A visit to the Scott-Yarbrough House is like seeing a leading museum. There are some priceless items to be seen such as a Steinway piano from the 1800s and a Singer sewing machine from the same period. There’s furniture in the home that dates to the 1840s.

Children who come for visits are intrigued by the closet doors. “They always want to know what’s in it,” Wilson said. “They wonder if there is some kind of Harry Potter-style secret stairway.”

There is an upstairs area that can be seen on the virtual tour. It has some hallmarks from the 1970s when college students boarded there. There’s a large depiction of a mushroom on the wall. “Some people called it the hippie house,” Wilson said.

College students had boarded there as far back as the 1850s. “At one time, fourteen students from Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina boarded here,” he said of that very early period.

One of the more interesting items in the Scott-Yarbrough House is an 1826 map of Alabama. Much of the east Alabama region at the time still belonged to the Creeks. Six years later in 1832, the Treaty of Cusseta allowed the Creeks to have an area that now covers seven east Alabama counties including Lee and Chambers.

There’s also some African-American history of the region on display. One such item is a large photograph of a family reunion in the home. Those in attendance were descendants of slaves on the Scott Plantation or who later worked the land as tenant farmers.

“The Scotts had slaves, Scott Plantation,” Wilson said. “Some couples had been together for a long time. Some of them got married in Tuskegee following the Civil War. It was legal for them to do that at the time.”

African Americans played central roles in the development of Pebble Hill. They built the house and outbuildings, cultivated the land, maintained the house and grounds, prepared food for members of the household and cared for the children who grew up there. Enslaved African Americans were among Pebble Hill’s first residents.

The Scotts acquired the land from the Creeks. The original deed has the name Paddy Carr, thought to be a local chief.

Late in the Civil War, Union cavalry made a stop at the house and watered their horses in a spring behind the house.

The war had been a difficult experience for the Scotts. Nathaniel died in 1862 and Mary continued to live there for a time. She eventually sold the house, and it would have a succession of owners until it went to Dr. Cecil Yarbrough and his wife Bertha Mae in 1912. The Ray, Hollifield, Riley and Hodges families had lived there before they acquired what became known as Pebble Hill. Like Nathanial Scott had done before him, Dr. Yarbrough was active in local and state politics. He served two terms as mayor of Auburn and also represented Lee County in the Alabama legislature. During World War II, he served as a college physician.

The Auburn Heritage Association purchased the house in 1974 and began its restoration. Four years later it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Scott-Yarbrough House is now home to the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in Auburn University’s College of Liberal Arts.