Wood, Bricks, and Stone

The History of Home in the Early American South

Part 1: The Spoils of War

John and Landon Carter House, ca. 1775, Elizabethton, Tennessee.

This is the first of what I hope to be an irregular but conspicuous blog concerning the architectural history of Early American Homes, particularly in the South. As a category, one usually associates the term Early American Homes with structures pre-existing the country's founding located largely in New England. I accept that designation as well. However, I borrow the term here as the American South had a delayed start regarding settlement and, since we were no longer under monarchial rule, the subjects described were truly "Early American".

I approach this subject as not only an enthusiast but as a licensed contractor of historic trades specializing in traditional timber-framing, stonework, and millwork all done by hand. I am also an avid amateur historian with a love and respect for our ancestors and the brilliant work they accomplished with optimism in their heart and wrought-iron tools in their hands.

Legacy of a Revolution

For all intents and purposes, the War of Independence ended on October 19, 1781. Although hostilities wouldn't officially end till May of 1784, as soon as General Lord Charles Cornwallis surrendered the largest field army in British North America to the Franco-American alliance at Yorktown, Americans began to embrace an optimism and spirit most of humanity throughout its history had never known. Liberty was no longer a philosophical idea; it was a reality.

In an attempt to better unify the war effort of the embattled colonies, the Continental Congress had adopted the Articles of Confederation in March of 1781, a compact which remained in effect till being superseded by the United States Constitution in March of 1789. Under the Articles of Confederation, congress was extremely limited on their ability to create or enforce laws and it had no authorization to levy taxes. At the close of the war, these two factors immediately presented a problem on how congress could compensate a population of some 80,000 war veterans that had served in the Continental Army. Add to that the Provincial troops, local militia, and State Line forces and the total number of men that served during the Revolution is estimated at over a quarter million. As only the states could raise taxes, the congress was left to petition the states for needed funds or borrow from foreign governments. The one area where there was an abundant resource was land ceded by the crown via the 1783 Treaty of Paris which brought a close to the war and recognized the former English colonies as separate and sovereign states.

A country of landowners, a nation of farmers

Little known in other parts of the world, for a common man to be a private landowner was extreme motivation for self-preservation and by extension the preservation of the principles, laws, and beliefs that made ownership possible. In short, a nation of private property owners makes for good citizens. The American mindset regarding private ownership of land and the freedom to perpetuate one's own endeavors was captured in American cinematic history in 1935 by Margaret Mitchell's 'Gone with the Wind' as plantation owner Gerald O'Hara lectured his daughter Scarlett, "Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin’ for, worth fightin’ for, worth dyin’ for, because it’s the only thing that lasts.” Long pre-dating the fictional words of Mitchell's Gerald O'Hara, that sentiment was a prominent mindset among those men who struggled through eight years of war in our country's bid for Independence. Men were willing to fight for the chance to own land, to establish home, and to make their own way in the world. Recognized early on by the states, committees began to incorporate land grants as inducements to men willing to become soldiers in return.

An 18th century recruiting scene

Beginning as early as 1776, the states offered three-year enlistees a land bounty of $20 and 100 acres. As time passed, the awards grew until privates received on average, all states considered, 230 acres with generals receiving acreage in the range of 2000 or more. Some grants were extremely large. A local example in Middle Tennessee is the land grant awarded to General Nathaneal Green in present-day Maury County of 25,000 acres. Short on money but with an abundance of territory, compensating the veterans quickly fell to commissioners and land agents that surveyed the new lands, carving out grants to be awarded to soldiers who fought for the cause of American Independence. Although pundits argue the issue today, there is no doubt historically that the United States of America was created by the confederation of individual and sovereign states with the national government being a mere agent of those states. As the United States took her place among the nations of the world, the "national" government had mainly land and very little else. States jealously guarded their autonomy so even this resource was intimately entwined with the interest of the individual states. Still, confusing as it was, states as well as the confederated government, had little else to offer those who had secured their freedoms. This reality and the associated land grants that were forthcoming, created an environment of frontier warfare that dominated the first twenty-five or so years of our history as more and more people pushed into areas that native inhabitants didn't recognize as now belonging to someone else. They gave little heed to a treaty they had no say in, that was agreed upon by others in a place they had never seen. Additionally, the British government kept active Indian agents working among the native population against American interest. Frontier raids were commonplace and whole families of settlers might be "put under the knife" at any given moment. Such were the conditions in America's interior in the early years of the Republic that it dominated the policies of the government and preoccupied the Secretary of War's office near constantly. Hostilities in the Old Northwest with the native tribes, primarily the Miami and the Shawnee, resulted in the worst defeat ever suffered by the United States Army at the battle of the Wabash in 1791. Afterward, warfare continued on again and off again, until the issue was settled during the War of 1812.

Early map showing colonial boundaries stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River.

While New England and the mid-Atlantic colonies were established and fairly well settled, those of the South stretched all the way to the Mississippi River in the west and to Canada's boundary in the north. Each Southern state had within its border vast tracts of wilderness. After the war, the Congress of the Confederation established from colonial Virginia's vast domain, the area known as the Northwest Territory in 1787. Three years later, the United States Congress established the Southwest Territory in 1790 from what under British rule had been the colonies of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Into this wilderness migrated tens of thousands of Revolutionary War veterans in the first great expansion into the interior of the country. Many veterans of Virginia and states of the mid-Atlantic and New England, migrated into the Old Northwest Territory into areas that eventually became Ohio, Indiana, Illionois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Other Virginians, along with veterans of the other southern states of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, pushed westward and southward into the wilderness that we now know as Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi.

As east coast Americans began to populate what would become the American South, they brought with them the architecture familiar to them that stretched not only to the original colonies, but across the ocean to their ancestral home of England and the British Isles.

In subsequent blog posts I intend to chronicle their story and chart the migration of these early Americans in an effort to learn who they were, where they came from, and what they built. I hope this series is enjoyable and informative. Please share with any and all you think might have an interest in my work. Thank you. - JLB