This modest home is a 600 square-foot cottage with a 300 square-foot porch. It evolved from a small dogtrot that was built in the 1850s. The dogtrot was a common style of pioneer home in the South during the 1800s. A dogtrot home featured two separate enclosed living areas connected by a large central, open-ended, covered passageway. As was common with dogtrots, this cottage had a small semi-detached rear kitchen connected by a covered passage until the 1930s. The present cottage includes a central hall formed by enclosing the original open dogtrot. This small cottage still lacks electricity and indoor plumbing.
Over the decades, this cottage was home to a number of residents, including Lawrence and Corinne Locklin as newlyweds in the 1890s, Mrs. Anna (Moore) Tolin and her daughter’s family, and the Howards’ son, William L. “Master Billy” Howard (1852–1930). The Howard House stood directly across from the home of Emma (Agee) Broughton (1863–1916), a diarist whose writings frequently mentioned the cottage and its occupants, offering a rare firsthand glimpse into everyday life on Perdue Hill. The property passed through the Locklin family from the 1890s to the 1950s before being purchased by the Broughton family in the mid-20th century.
In December 2025, the building was gifted to the Perdue Hill-Claiborne Foundation by board members Ann Broughton Magee and Agee Stallworth Broughton III. The Foundation is going to preserve it as a historic site.
This cottage is located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 84 and County Road 1, a short distance west of the Masonic Hall at Perdue Hill (GPS coordinates 31.516808, -87.497528).
The photographs that are provided were taken August 2010.
Source: Perdue Hill-Claiborne Foundation