Rocket City Rewind: The Humes Legacy in Huntsville’s Industrial Dawn

It is often determined that visionaries throughout history were ahead of their time, but Captain Milton Humes and his wife were very much “of their time” as Huntsville’s elite.

One of the most prominent attorneys in Alabama and known throughout the South, the Captain became a leading player in creating the North Alabama Improvement Company (NAIC) that led Huntsville’s industrial pursuits at a time agriculture ruled Southern economies.

Humes (1844-1908) was not just a notable lawyer. He was also a shrewd real estate investor, railroad company associate, state house representative and was known as the father of the public road system in Madison County.

He served as state bar president, but declined an offer to join Alabama’s Supreme Court.

Humes and his wife, Elizabeth Chapman Humes, were both community-driven philanthropists. They liked to socialize at Abingdon Place, their home on Meridian Street across from what would become Lincoln Mill. 

“He’s everywhere in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century,’’ said Donna Castellano, executive director of the Historical Huntsville Foundation. “He was part of the investor circle that recruited (textile mill magnate) Trevanion Dallas to Huntsville.

“Humes,’’ she added, “also had an interesting, albeit tragic, death.”

Industry rising

Like many Huntsville settlers in the 19th century, Milton Humes was a Virginian born in Abingdon. When the Civil War began he enlisted in the Confederate Army, was later shot through the hips at Chickamauga and was wounded again at Kennessaw Mountain. 

Already a captain, he was elevated to major for gallantry on the field at Chickamauga. The former sobriquet followed him into civilian life.

After the war, Humes lived with his sister, Mrs. L. B. Sheffey, in Huntsville before returning to Virginia to attend law school at Washington and Lee. He went back to Huntsville after graduating and married Ellelee in 1870.

Humes and other prominent Huntsville figures joined New York’s O’Shaughnessy brothers in the startup NAIC that changed the trajectory of Huntsville.

Trevanion Barlow Dallas, better known as T.B., joined the crew as a company executive. The group’s first project was building Hotel Monte Sano, an exclusive resort built on top of the mountain.

The NAIC soon turned its attention to manufacturing, establishing four cotton mills that transformed Huntsville into a regional textile hub: Dallas, Madison Spinning, Merrimack, and Lowe. Dallas Mill was the first to open in 1891, followed by Madison Spinning in 1900, a facility later renamed Abingdon and eventually Lincoln.

In the 1890s, Humes, Dallas and others founded the Madison Spinning Company as an offshoot of the new syndicate. Humes eventually bought the mill outright, renaming it Abingdon in 1906.

Meanwhile, Humes co-founded Monte Sano Dairy, which actually was located in a pocket of northeast Huntsville in the valley beneath the mountain. The dairy was home to Lily Flagg, the city’s legendary cow.

Civic service

Among the projects Humes helped finance was the paving around the public square. He was the first to step forward with a donation, a move that led The Morning Mercury to declare, “This is not the first time by any means that the captain (sic) has been the first to show a progressive spirit in the upbuilding of Progressive Huntsville.’’

Ellelee had many causes and was instrumental in establishing the City Infirmary, a precursor to Huntsville Hospital. She was passionate about pushing for passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a move that would grant women the right to vote.

Her sister, Alberta Chapman Taylor, invited suffragist pioneers Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt to speak at Huntsville City Hall in 1895. They came and addressed an overflow crowd, followed by Milton Humes announcing the formation of the Huntsville Equal Suffrage Association (HESA).

A grand party followed at Abingdon Place, which was razed in 1968.

Ellelee (1850-1920) died one month before the U.S. Congress ratified the 19th Amendment, ensuring women the right to vote.

Tragic end

Milton Humes felt ill in late December 1908. Ellelee later reported that during the night he had entered her adjoining bedroom, complained of a stomach issue and went downstairs to get some soda phosphate.

She awakened a few hours later at 6:30 a.m. and went to Milton’s room. The bed was empty. A broken phosphate bottle, a heavy framed mirror and a broken silver shaving cup lay on the floor underneath a shattered window.

She looked out of the opening and saw Captain prone on the pavement below, dead.

The prevailing assumption was Humes was having trouble breathing, and to get fresh air he tried to open the second-floor window and failed. He then used both the mirror and silver cup in a frantic attempt to break the window pane, which he did, and fell through.

It was discovered he had a broken leg and cuts to his arm and head. His wounds weren’t bleeding. The coroner deduced he was deceased before the fall, likely from a stroke of apoplexy. He took his findings to a grand jury, which agreed.

Humes was buried at Maple Hill Cemetery where his father-in-law and 13th governor of Alabama, Reuben Chapman, was interred. Ellelee and her sister, Amanda, are also buried there.

Meanwhile, doubts about the circumstances of Captain Milton Humes’ death lingered. One of his descendants suggested to historians that Humes, who was fond of spirits, may have been inebriated during the event and fell in a drunken state.

The reporter William Lewis Clay of the Huntsville Weekly Democrat, who wrote that Captain Humes was “generous to a fault,’’ gave no weight to any gossip regarding one of the city’s historical giants.

“He was a leader of men, brave, chivalrous, gallant,’’ he added. “Peace to his ashes.’’