Alex Haley's Boyhood Home

Alex Haley's Boyhood Home is a Tennessee historical marker in Lauderdale County.

Lauderdale Co, Henning, Alex Haley Boyhood Home Dr.

Get directions ↗Start a road trip Historical trails

Will Palmer, a prominent Henning businessman, built this house in 1918-19, Palmer's grandson Alex Haley lived here from 1921 to 1929 and later spent many summers with his grand-parents. It was on the porch that he heard the stories told by his grandmother and aunts which inspired him to write his 1976 Pulitzer Prize-winning book Roots. Millions of Americans watched an eight-part television adaptation the following year.

TodayHistorical map

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Historical maps covering this location

1862 · Johnson's Kentucky & Tennessee (1862) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1864 · Kentucky And Tennessee (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1886 · Arkansas. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1895 · Gen. map XVIII. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1924 · Tennessee. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Example

For example, one family's tree showed the Articles of Confederation marker in Pennsylvania standing under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s.

What that marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years there.

From one family's 77-marker roster

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Marker text and location from the Tennessee Historical Commission, as the Commission publishes them on its marker map.

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On the National Register nearby

W. E. Palmer House120 ft

Places within about 300 feet of this marker that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A nearby listing is not always the marker's own subject.