Autauga County Heritage Association
A Part of Prattville History Comes Home
Last week was an exciting week for ACHA! In early 2021 I renewed a friendship with a Pratt descendant, Ernest Johnston, who lived in West Virginia. What I thought would be a conversation , turned into almost daily contact. (My children teased me that I had a new boyfriend!)Mr. Johnston, 91, was the great-grandson of Merrill (nephew of Daniel Pratt) and Julia Adelaide Smith Pratt and he seemed hungry to explore his family history. He remembered visiting his grandparents, Columbus Eugene and Augusta Pratt Thomas, at their “Prathoma” home in the Deer Park. His mother, Emma Julia Thomas Johnston, was one of their daughters, and lived in Selma where Ernest grew up.
The conversations were fun & informative to us both!
In the course of the conversations, Ernest shared he had a secretary desk that had belong to Daniel Pratt and it had resided in the Pratt house in Prattville. After conferring with his daughters, he drew up a paper to ensure that the desk returned to Prattville after his and his wife’s deaths.
Following their dad’s wishes we were contacted in February that the daughters were sorting and cleaning out the home in Shepherdstown, WV and would like us to arrange the moving of the desk. Though I had never arranged the moving of an item from out of state, I had the good fortune to be put in contact with a former citizen of Prattville, Jett Starnes, who now works in Mobile with a logistics company. Jett made the process seem easy as he found a deliverer who could work for us within our budget. The mover picked up the desk and a bonus chair last Thursday and by Friday afternoon the desk and chair arrived in Prattville. The new home for the Pratt desk is Buena Vista and the chair will be at the Prattaugan Museum. The captain style chair is one from a set of 12 that Merrill Pratt had made at the Gin Shop in Prattville. Ernest remembered the chair being at his grandfather’s house in Prattville. Under the seat of the chair, a label denotes the ownership of the chair through the generations.
Some of our great volunteers were on hand to receive the desk and chair and to assist moving it into its new home. The delivery driver said he was so proud to be the one to deliver such historic pieces. He had even read about Pratt and Prattville!
ACHA is thrilled to be the recipient of such a meaningful gift. Ernest Johnston was a diplomat with several U.S. embassies around the world, but in his travels, he never forgot his family’s beginnings in Prattville. Thank you to the Johnston family!
