Wildwood was the home of Virginia Clay Clopton (1825-1915), an author and social leader known in Washington society as "The Belle of the Fifties." Her first husband, Clement Claiborne Clay (1817-1882), was a United States Senator from Alabama from 1853 to 1861 and a Confederate leader from 1861 to 1865. Her second husband, David Clopton (1820-1892), was a United States Congressman from Alabama from 1859 to 1861 and later an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama.