White Plains (Cookeville, Tennessee)
Encyclopedia
White Plains is an antebellum plantation
house near the U.S. city of Algood, Tennessee
. In the 19th century, the plantation provided a key stopover along the Walton Road, an early stagecoach road connecting Knoxville
and Nashville
, and in 1854 served as a temporary county seat for the newly formed Putnam County
. In 2009, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places
.
The White Plains plantation was established in 1809 by William Quarles (1752–1814), a Revolutionary War
veteran who had migrated to the area from Virginia
. Quarles' grandson, Stephan Decatur Burton (1813–1892), built the White Plains house sometime around 1848, and in the late 1950s Harvey Draper bought the house and made numerous renovations. Draper's granddaughter is the house's current owner.
, a plateau-like upland between the higher Cumberland Plateau
to the east and the lower Nashville Basin
to the west. The western escarpments of the Cumberland Plateau, known locally as "Algood Mountain" and "Buck Mountain," rise about a mile to the east. The house stands along Old Walton Road just outside the municipal boundary of Algood.
lands ceded to the United States with the signing of the Third Treaty of Tellico in 1805. The Walton Road, a stagecoach road completed in 1801 connecting Knoxville and Nashville, brought the earliest permanent legal settlers to the Upper Cumberland
region. Around 1804, an early pioneer named Daniel Alexander established an inn along the Walton Road at what is now White Plains. In 1808, Alexander sold the inn and land to William Quarles, a lawyer and Revolutionary War veteran from Bedford County, Virginia
. Quarles moved his family, belongings, and thirty slaves to the new land in December 1809. According to family tradition, Quarles named the land "White Plains," as the waves of prairie grass appeared white in the winter sunlight as Quarles looked out over the land from the edge of the Cumberland Plateau.
Shortly after his arrival, Quarles built a two-story log house with a detached kitchen and office, and several slave cabins. Within a few years, Quarles had established a general store, blacksmith shop, and post office at White Plains. The Kentucky Stock Road, a cattle drovers' path connecting Huntsville, Alabama
and Danville, Kentucky
, was developed in subsequent years and intersected the Walton Road at White Plains. The Quarles' inn was a popular stopover for travellers along these two roads, and three U.S. presidents— Andrew Jackson
, James K. Polk
, and Andrew Johnson
— are known to have lodged at White Plains. Quarles's youngest son, John Adams Quarles (1802–1876), may have inspired author Mark Twain
's story, "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (John Quarles was married to Twain's aunt, Martha Lampton). Quarles's daughter, Sallie, was married to U.S. Congressman Adam Huntsman
, famous in Tennessee history for defeating Davy Crockett
in the 1834 election and prompting Crockett's angry departure to Texas
.
On April 2, 1814, William P. Quarles was murdered by a man named William Phillips. His wife, Ann Hawes Quarles, continued to manage White Plains until her death in 1844, when the land passed to Stephen Decatur Burton (1813–1892), a grandson of William and Ann. Burton built the present house at White Plains in 1848, and built a two-story schoolhouse for the small community's children. Largely through inheritance, Burton was one of the Upper Cumberland's largest slaveholders, owning around 100 slaves at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. During the war, Burton lost the bulk of his fortune when Union
forces burned several warehouses in Chattanooga
, where Burton had amassed $125,000 worth of cotton.
In the latter half of the 19th century, the community around White Plains disintegrated, although the house and farm remained in the hands of the Quarles-Burton family. The family eventually sold the house to Harvey Draper, who remodeled the house in the late 1950s. Draper's granddaughter, Martha Willis, is the house's current owner.
The interior of the house originally consisted of poplar floors, although the poplar floor on the first story was covered with hardwood in 1958. The original rooms all had a fireplace, each with a unique mantel. A "dog-leg" staircase accesses the second story. The first-story hallway has built-in gun cabinets and a 19th-century pier mirror (the latter added in 1958).
Outbuildings at White Plains include a smokehouse
, corn crib
, and horse barn. The smokehouse, built with dovetail-notched logs around 1860, was remodeled as a log cabin in 1990. The corn crib, a log structure built around 1860, was moved from its original location around 1950, and now stands next to the smokehouse. The horse barn is a modern structure built around 2000, with wooden walls and a metal roof. The Quarles and Burton family cemeteries are located opposite the junction of Old Walton Road and Deck Mountain Road, a few blocks from the house.
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
house near the U.S. city of Algood, Tennessee
Algood, Tennessee
Algood is a town in Putnam County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 2,942 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Cookeville, Tennessee Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
. In the 19th century, the plantation provided a key stopover along the Walton Road, an early stagecoach road connecting Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
and Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, and in 1854 served as a temporary county seat for the newly formed Putnam County
Putnam County, Tennessee
Putnam County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2000, the population was 62,315, a 21 percent increase from 1990. The was 72,321, an increase of 16.1% since 2000...
. In 2009, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
The White Plains plantation was established in 1809 by William Quarles (1752–1814), a Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
veteran who had migrated to the area from Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
. Quarles' grandson, Stephan Decatur Burton (1813–1892), built the White Plains house sometime around 1848, and in the late 1950s Harvey Draper bought the house and made numerous renovations. Draper's granddaughter is the house's current owner.
Location
White Plains is located on the eastern Highland RimHighland Rim
The Highland Rim is a geographic term for the area in Tennessee surrounding the Central Basin. Nashville is largely surrounded by higher terrain in all directions....
, a plateau-like upland between the higher Cumberland Plateau
Cumberland Plateau
The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and western West Virginia, part of Tennessee, and a small portion of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia . The terms "Allegheny Plateau" and the "Cumberland Plateau" both refer to the...
to the east and the lower Nashville Basin
Nashville Basin
The Nashville Basin, also known as the Central Basin, is a term often used to describe the area surrounding Nashville, Tennessee. The Central Basin was caused by an uplifting known as the Nashville Dome. The Nashville Dome is evidenced by the underlying rock strata that all dip downwards away from...
to the west. The western escarpments of the Cumberland Plateau, known locally as "Algood Mountain" and "Buck Mountain," rise about a mile to the east. The house stands along Old Walton Road just outside the municipal boundary of Algood.
History
What is now White Plains was part of CherokeeCherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
lands ceded to the United States with the signing of the Third Treaty of Tellico in 1805. The Walton Road, a stagecoach road completed in 1801 connecting Knoxville and Nashville, brought the earliest permanent legal settlers to the Upper Cumberland
Cumberland River
The Cumberland River is a waterway in the Southern United States. It is long. It starts in Harlan County in far southeastern Kentucky between Pine and Cumberland mountains, flows through southern Kentucky, crosses into northern Tennessee, and then curves back up into western Kentucky before...
region. Around 1804, an early pioneer named Daniel Alexander established an inn along the Walton Road at what is now White Plains. In 1808, Alexander sold the inn and land to William Quarles, a lawyer and Revolutionary War veteran from Bedford County, Virginia
Bedford County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 60,371 people, 23,838 households, and 18,164 families residing in the county. The population density was 80 people per square mile . There were 26,841 housing units at an average density of 36 per square mile...
. Quarles moved his family, belongings, and thirty slaves to the new land in December 1809. According to family tradition, Quarles named the land "White Plains," as the waves of prairie grass appeared white in the winter sunlight as Quarles looked out over the land from the edge of the Cumberland Plateau.
Shortly after his arrival, Quarles built a two-story log house with a detached kitchen and office, and several slave cabins. Within a few years, Quarles had established a general store, blacksmith shop, and post office at White Plains. The Kentucky Stock Road, a cattle drovers' path connecting Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville is a city located primarily in Madison County in the central part of the far northern region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Huntsville is the county seat of Madison County. The city extends west into neighboring Limestone County. Huntsville's population was 180,105 as of the 2010 Census....
and Danville, Kentucky
Danville, Kentucky
Danville is a city in and the county seat of Boyle County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 16,218 at the 2010 census.Danville is the principal city of the Danville Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Boyle and Lincoln counties....
, was developed in subsequent years and intersected the Walton Road at White Plains. The Quarles' inn was a popular stopover for travellers along these two roads, and three U.S. presidents— Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...
, James K. Polk
James K. Polk
James Knox Polk was the 11th President of the United States . Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives and the 12th Governor of Tennessee...
, and Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...
— are known to have lodged at White Plains. Quarles's youngest son, John Adams Quarles (1802–1876), may have inspired author Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
's story, "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (John Quarles was married to Twain's aunt, Martha Lampton). Quarles's daughter, Sallie, was married to U.S. Congressman Adam Huntsman
Adam Huntsman
Adam Huntsman was an American lawyer and politician who represented Tennessee's twelfth district in the United States House of Representatives from 1835 to 1837.-Biography:...
, famous in Tennessee history for defeating Davy Crockett
Davy Crockett
David "Davy" Crockett was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S...
in the 1834 election and prompting Crockett's angry departure to Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
.
On April 2, 1814, William P. Quarles was murdered by a man named William Phillips. His wife, Ann Hawes Quarles, continued to manage White Plains until her death in 1844, when the land passed to Stephen Decatur Burton (1813–1892), a grandson of William and Ann. Burton built the present house at White Plains in 1848, and built a two-story schoolhouse for the small community's children. Largely through inheritance, Burton was one of the Upper Cumberland's largest slaveholders, owning around 100 slaves at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. During the war, Burton lost the bulk of his fortune when Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
forces burned several warehouses in Chattanooga
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
, where Burton had amassed $125,000 worth of cotton.
In the latter half of the 19th century, the community around White Plains disintegrated, although the house and farm remained in the hands of the Quarles-Burton family. The family eventually sold the house to Harvey Draper, who remodeled the house in the late 1950s. Draper's granddaughter, Martha Willis, is the house's current owner.
House and outbuildings
The house at White Plains was originally constructed in 1848 by Stephen Decatur Burton after the loghouse built by his grandfather William Quarles burned. The house originally consisted of a hewn log frame with weatherboard siding, built around a central floor plan. Two 15 feet (4.6 m) by 15 feet (4.6 m) rooms flank both sides of the central hallway on the first floor, and the second floor consists of four 15 feet (4.6 m) by 15 feet (4.6 m). A sitting room was added to the rear of the house in 1925. The 1958 renovations included the addition of a brick exterior, a front portico, and two single-story wings containing a kitchen and several bedrooms.The interior of the house originally consisted of poplar floors, although the poplar floor on the first story was covered with hardwood in 1958. The original rooms all had a fireplace, each with a unique mantel. A "dog-leg" staircase accesses the second story. The first-story hallway has built-in gun cabinets and a 19th-century pier mirror (the latter added in 1958).
Outbuildings at White Plains include a smokehouse
Smokehouse
A smokehouse is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more.-History:...
, corn crib
Corn crib
A corn crib or corncrib is a type of granary used to dry and store corn. It is also known as a cornhouse or corn house, though this term can refer to any granary....
, and horse barn. The smokehouse, built with dovetail-notched logs around 1860, was remodeled as a log cabin in 1990. The corn crib, a log structure built around 1860, was moved from its original location around 1950, and now stands next to the smokehouse. The horse barn is a modern structure built around 2000, with wooden walls and a metal roof. The Quarles and Burton family cemeteries are located opposite the junction of Old Walton Road and Deck Mountain Road, a few blocks from the house.
External links
- William Pennington Quarles — site dedicated to the preservation of White Plains and the Quarles cemetery