Dr. John Coleman, born June 6, 1788 in North Carolina, was one of Butler County's earliest pioneer settlers and built the Coleman-Crenshaw House sometime between 1817 and 1821. In June 1820, Butler County's first election for Sheriff and Constable was held at the Coleman Plantation House. The house remained continuously occupied by a Coleman descendant, Martha Coleman (John Ira Brown), until it was purchased in 1909 by Gardner Crenshaw, a forty-four-year-old former slave from the plantation of Thomas Chiles Crenshaw, son of Judge Anderson Crenshaw. The unnamed Coleman family slaves, never formally recognized, contributed to building the house as well as to its maintenance and upkeep during the pre-Civil War era. Dr. John Coleman is buried in the Coleman Cemetery on the northeast tract of the plantation, and Gardner Crenshaw is buried at Braggs Hill Cemetery. The house was listed in the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage in 2005.