Beech Grove is a historic mansion in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

. Built as a log house circa 1850, it was a Southern

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

with African slaves in the

Antebellum era The ''Antebellum'' South era (from ) was a period in the history of the Southern United States that extended from the conclusion of the War of 1812 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861. This era was marked by the prevalent practi ...

. In the 1910s, it became a livestock farm.

Location

The property is located at 8423 Old Harding Pike in Nashville, the county seat of

Davidson County, Tennessee Davidson County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is located in the heart of Middle Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 715,884, making it the 2nd most populous county in Tennessee. Its county seat is Nashville, ...

History

The land belonged to Elisha Sherrill until 1801, when Hugh Allison acquired 200 acres. Allison, who served on the Davidson County Court, owned ten African slaves. He lived on the farm with his wife, Lydia Harrison Allison, and their five children. When he died in 1835, one of his sons, Thomas Jefferson Allison, inherited the farm. He acquired more land, expanding to 1,150 acres. Additionally, he owned 22 African slaves by 1840 and 53 slaves by 1860. As a result, the farm became a Southern plantation. Allison lived on the plantation with his wife Tabitha and their six children. The two-storey log house was built for the Allison family by Thomas Jones and Caleb Lucas, two carpenters, circa 1850. It was designed in the

Greek Revival architecture Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

. During the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

, half the slaves ran away via the railroad. After the war, the remaining 20 former slaves, now

freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their owners), emancipation (granted freedom as part of a larger group), or self- ...

, worked on the property as tenant farmers. Meanwhile, Allison and his wife continued to live in the house until he died in 1897 and she died in 1910. Subsequently, the property was inherited by Allison's granddaughter, Allie Morton and her husband, Sam. They turned it into a livestock farm. In the 1920s, they redesigned the house in the Colonial Revival architectural style. The Mortons sold the house in 1975. It was later purchased by the Kacki family in 1993.

Architectural significance

It has been listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

since November 8, 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beech Grove Houses in Nashville, Tennessee Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Colonial Revival architecture in Tennessee Antebellum architecture Plantation houses in Tennessee National Register of Historic Places in Nashville, Tennessee