Ramsey House (Knox County, Tennessee) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Ramsey House
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The Ramsey House
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| Location | SE of Knoxville on Thorngrove Pike |
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| Nearest city | Knoxville, Tennessee |
| Built | 1797 |
| Architect | Thomas Hope |
| NRHP reference No. | 69000180 |
| Added to NRHP | December 23, 1969 |
The Ramsey House is a two-story stone house in Knox County, Tennessee, United States. It is also known as Swan Pond. The house was built in 1797 by an English architect named Thomas Hope. He built it for Colonel Francis Alexander Ramsey (1764–1820). His family had a large farm, called a plantation, at this spot until the U.S. Civil War.
In 1969, the Ramsey House was added to the National Register of Historic Places. This was because of its special architecture and its important role in the area's history in the early 1800s.
Francis Alexander Ramsey first came to what is now Greene County in 1783. Soon after, he explored the Holston River. That is when he found the perfect spot for his future home. In the 1780s, he worked as an official for the new State of Franklin. Later, he served in the governments of the Southwest Territory and the State of Tennessee.
Ramsey's children included W. B. A. Ramsey, who became an early mayor of Knoxville. Another son was J. G. M. Ramsey, a historian and businessman. Both of them lived in the Ramsey House at different times. During the Civil War, the Ramsey family supported the Confederacy. When the Union Army took over Knoxville, the Ramseys left. They sold the house in 1866.
Today, the Knoxville Chapter of the Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities (APTA) owns the Ramsey House. They bought it in 1952. They now keep the house and its grounds as a museum for visitors.
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Discovering the Ramsey House Location
The Ramsey House is in a wide valley. It is just over a mile east of a place called Forks-of-the-River. This is where the Holston River and French Broad River meet to form the Tennessee River.
The land managed by APTA includes the Ramsey House, a visitor's center, and gardens. This area covers about 101.5 acres (41.1 hectares). You can find the house and grounds at 2614 Thorngrove Pike. It is just off John Sevier Highway (TN-168).
A Look Back: History of the Ramsey House
How the Ramsey House Began
Francis Alexander Ramsey was born in Pennsylvania in 1764. His parents were Scotch-Irish. He moved to Greene County, Tennessee, in 1783. That year, North Carolina opened up land for settlement. This land was north of the French Broad River.
Ramsey, James White, and other explorers started looking for new land. They explored the area where Knoxville is now. On one trip, Ramsey found a pond full of beavers and game. He called it "Swan Pond." He was given the land around Swan Pond in November 1786.
Ramsey was busy with the State of Franklin government (1784–1788). So, he did not move to Swan Pond right away. In 1792, he was made a clerk for the new Southwest Territory. Then, he decided to move to Swan Pond. It was just outside Knoxville, the territory's capital.
Ramsey chose to build his new house on a piece of land sticking out into the pond. But because of concerns about malaria, he had to drain the pond first. Thomas Hope, an architect trained in London, designed the house. He likely built it between 1795 and 1797.
After it was finished, the Ramsey House became part of a large farm. When Francis Ramsey died in 1820, his oldest son, W.B.A. Ramsey, inherited the house. In 1840, W.B.A Ramsey sold the house to his brother, J.G.M. Ramsey (1797–1884). J.G.M. Ramsey was very interested in the area's history. He had built a big mansion nearby called "Mecklenburg." It had a huge library with 4,000 books about Tennessee's early days. In 1857, J.G.M. Ramsey gave the Ramsey House to his son, also named Francis Alexander Ramsey, as a wedding gift.
The Civil War and the Ramsey Family
J.G.M. Ramsey was important in the growth of East Tennessee. He helped start the area's first medical group. He was also president of the Bank of East Tennessee. He worked hard to bring railroads to the region.
In the late 1850s, Ramsey had problems with William G. "Parson" Brownlow. Brownlow was a newspaper publisher in Knoxville. He often wrote articles accusing the bank's leaders, including Ramsey, of mismanaging money. He also accused Ramsey's son, John Crozier Ramsey (1824–1868), of creating false accounts for workers. Brownlow's constant attacks helped Horace Maynard win against John Crozier Ramsey for a spot in Congress in 1859.
When the Civil War started, the Ramseys supported the Confederacy. This made their conflict with Brownlow even worse. Brownlow was strongly against leaving the Union. In December 1861, John Crozier Ramsey, who was a district attorney, had Brownlow put in jail. He was accused of planning to burn railroad bridges in East Tennessee. The Ramseys wanted Brownlow to be hanged. But the Confederate Army let him go, fearing public anger.
Because of Brownlow's influence, J.G.M. Ramsey's Mecklenburg mansion was burned. This happened when the Union Army took over Knoxville in 1863. His valuable library was lost.
With Mecklenburg destroyed, the Ramseys decided not to return to Knoxville. They had fled to South Carolina when the Union Army approached in 1863. The Ramsey House was sold to William Spurgien in 1866. After that, the house started to fall apart. J.G.M. Ramsey eventually moved back to Knoxville in the 1870s. He was very sad to see the Ramsey House in such bad shape. He even wrote a poem about its decline in his autobiography.
Saving the Ramsey House
In 1927, a group called the Bonnie Kate Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution put a marker at the Ramsey House. It honored the site as the birthplace of J.G.M. Ramsey. His book, Annals of Tennessee, became a very important book about the state's early history.
In the next ten years, the house was studied by the Historic American Buildings Survey. In 1952, the Knoxville Chapter of APTA bought the house. They got help from state and local governments. They then began to restore it. The roof and windows were replaced. An old log cabin was moved to the site. This cabin represents the one the Ramseys used in the 1790s while their main house was being built.
The Design of Ramsey House
The Ramsey House is a two-story house built in the Late Georgian style. It is mostly made of local pink marble. It has bluish-gray limestone trim. This bluish-gray limestone forms a "belt" around the middle of the house. It also makes up the four corners of the house.
The house has a kitchen wing that is like a "dogtrot" style. The kitchen wing's southwest corner connects to the main house's northeast corner. Outside, you can see hand-carved cornices. The window arches are made of nine narrow stones each.
Inside, the house has a central hallway. The front door opens into this hallway. To the left is a library/parlor room. To the right is the dining room. The second floor has two bedrooms and an extra room. There was once a door that led to the porch roof, but the porch is no longer there.
The kitchen wing also has two stories. However, you cannot walk from the second story of the main house to the second story of the kitchen wing. The house has three chimneys. One is at each end of the main house. The third is at the end of the kitchen wing. In total, there are six fireplaces. The inside of the house has furniture from that time period. Two Chippendale chairs are especially notable. They were given to Francis Alexander Ramsey and his wife, Peggy, as a wedding gift.
Other Historic Places to See
- Alexander Bishop House
- Blount Mansion
- Craighead-Jackson House
- James Park House
- Statesview
- History of Knoxville, Tennessee
More Information
- Isenhour, Judith Clayton. Knoxville - A Pictorial History. (Donning, 1978), page 20.
- Rothrock, Mary U., editor. The French Broad-Holston Country: A History of Knox County, Tennessee. (Knox County Historical Committee; East Tennessee Historical Society, 1946).
- Knoxville: Fifty Landmarks. (Knoxville: The Knoxville Heritage Committee of the Junior League of Knoxville, 1976), p. 9.
