Representing 10,300 acres with 73 buildings and 14 structures, the Furman Historic District encompasses Old Snow Hill Road, Wilcox County Road 59, Burson Road, and AL 21, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 13, 1999. The town's history began circa 1802 when the first settlers came to the area from South Carolina. Most Wilcox County towns, including Furman, were settled by Scottish, Irish, and English people, though some of Furman's early settlers also came from the South Carolina low country and were of French ancestry. In the early 1800s, the William Snow family settled on a high hill north of present-day Furman, now the site of Old Snow Hill Cemetery, and the early community became known as Snow's Hill. It was renamed Furman in 1872 after the town of Furman, South Carolina, and a new community founded a few miles to the west was named Snow Hill. Furman Academy became a popular school in the late 1800s with students from across the state. Most of the earliest settlers came from the Carolinas, and family groups included the Albrittons, Carters, Lees, Palmers, Purifoys, Gulleys, McCondiches, Bursons, Hearsts, Stablers, Powells, and, after the Civil War, the Simpsons. Notable citizens included Elkanah Burson, an attaché to General Robert E. Lee, and John Purifoy, a member of Company C who later served Alabama as Secretary of State. Burson, an original member of the Wilcox True Blues Company, delivered the Confederacy surrender papers to General Ulysses Grant at Appomattox, then returned to Furman and later served in the Alabama House of Representatives. Direct descendants of the original settlers have continued to own homes and property in Furman, and landmarks include Trails End, Patience Plantation, Wakefield Plantation, Fox Hill Plantation, Palmer-Barlow-Britt Home, McCondiche-Stabler Home, Purifoy-Libscomb Home, Perdue-Williams-Estes Home, Watson-Moorer Home, Burson-Rushing Home, Robbins-Kennedy Home, Bethsaida Baptist Church, Furman Methodist Church, and Hopewell Church.