Object description

The Jude–Crutcher House is a historic plantation house in Huntsville, Alabama. The house was built circa 1812 on land deeded that year to Samuel Echols. Echols sold 54 acres and the house to George Jude, Sr., in 1817. Jude died two years later, leaving the land to his son, George Jr. The younger Jude eventually acquired 800 acres and owned 31 slaves. Upon his death in 1873, the land stayed in the family until 1883. In 1906 David Crutcher, who had been born a slave on an adjacent plantation in 1851, purchased the house and 154 acres along with two other African-American men. The Crutchers operated a successful farm on their portion of the land, which was an extension farm for Alabama A&M University until the 1940s. Only 7% of African-American farmers in Madison County in 1910 owned their own farms. David died in 1924, and his wife, Lucy, died in 1943, although the house and land is still in the family.