The modified Greek Revival house on McDuffie Street is known as the Poppe House. Located in Anderson, South Carolina, there seems to be some conflict in its history so I will share two different stories. According to the 1971 National Register of Historic Places application, the Poppe House was built in 1853 by Elizabeth Earle for her son and new wife. It was then sold to Charles Henry Julius and Alice Poppe in 1862, a couple from the Alsace-Lorraine region of Germany.
A 1973 article in the Independent Daily Mail states that J. T. Harrison built the house on land formerly owned by Elizabeth Hampton Harrison Earle. Elizabeth Earle had given her son, Captain Samuel G. Earle, and his wife, Kate, the land, who then had a house built on it. Samuel Earle moved to Arkansas to serve in the Civil War. Captain Earle sold the house to J. T. (sometimes noted as J. L. in other articles) Harrison in 1859. Harrison then sold the house to J. B. Earle, uncle of Samuel G. Earle. J. B. Earle then sold the house to Charles Henry Julius and Alice Poppe, who sold the home to H. S. Carpenter in 1903. Carpenter then sold it to the Charles and Olive Minor family in 1922.
The bricks were made by enslaved labor. (Here is an interesting article on fingerprints in slave labor bricks.)According to the 1850 slave census, the Earle family held over 200 people in bondage. I am not finding specific slave census records for a JT or JL Harrison, but they exist for a James Harrison in Anderson County. This person held approximately 20 people in bondage.
As the longest owners, Julius and Alice Poppe lived there for over fifty years. They purchased the home in 1862. The NRHP application mentions that the couple were from Alsace-Lorraine, part of Germany. However, Alice hailed from England, as shown on her headstone, which is linked above. Julius owned a store downtown known for the variety of goods it sold.
Alice Poppe was blind. She would place glass bottles in the flower beds and use her cane to tap around her garden. A later owner of the house, Merrill Bamfield, shared in a news article (Anderson Independent-Mail, January 18, 1981) that he would still find the occasional bottle in the yard.
Finally, the Poppe House was photographed in 1933 for the Historic American Buildings Survey, the nation’s first documentation and preservation program. The project’s goal was to document “the builder’s art.”