This 1888 Queen Anne house was the home of Gen. Samuel McGowan until his death. McGowan, a lawyer, Confederate general, and jurist born in Laurens Co., moved to Abbeville in 1841. He was an officer during the Mexican War and in the S.C. militia afterward. During the Civil War he commanded the 14th S.C. Infantry from 1862 to 1863 and a S.C. brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia from 1863 to 1865. After 1865 McGowan bought a house on this lot; the earlier house, built by Col. James Perrin in 1860, burned in 1867, and this house was built on the old foundation. McGowan served as a justice on the S.C. Supreme Court from 1879 to 1893. The Barksdale family bought the house in 1905, and World War II Gen. W.E. Barksdale was the last to live here. In 1989 his nephew J.D. Bundy gave it to the Abbeville County Historical Society as its headquarters.