"Wildwood"

Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, author of St. Elmo and other popular Victorian novels, was born May 8, 1835, in "Wildwood" the early Georgian home northeast of this marker. She was the daughter of Sarah Howard and Matthew R. Evans. This historic home was built in 1831 by Mr. Evans for his mother-in-law, Jane Vivian Howard. In 1837 it was sold to Van de Van Leonard II. Ownership descended to his daughter, Annie Foster Leonard, and from her to her children, the present (1953) owners. For many years the springs here furnished water for the City of Columbus, flowing through hollow logs. The last visit of this famed author to her birthplace was for the marriage of Annie Leonard to Louis Ford Garrard, May 20, 1868. Her productive literary career was spent in Mobile, Ala., where she wrote her first novel, INEZ, at the age of seventeen. On Dec. 2, 1868, she married Lorenzo Madison Wilson. She died in Mobile, May 9, 1909.