Ashwood Hall

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Ashwood Hall
Ashwood Hall facade1.jpg
Ashwood Hall
General information
StatusDemolished
Coordinates 35°34′23″N87°08′13″W / 35.57294°N 87.13703°W / 35.57294; -87.13703
Client Leonidas Polk

Ashwood Hall was a Southern plantation in Maury County, Tennessee.

Contents

Location

The plantation was located in Ashwood, a small town near Columbia in Maury County, Tennessee.

History

The land belonged to Colonel William Polk. [1] The mansion was built for one of his sons, Bishop Leonidas Polk, from 1833 to 1837. [1] [2] Opposite the mansion, Leonidas Polk built St. John's Episcopal Church from 1839 to 1842. [1] [3]

In 1847, Leonidas Polk sold the mansion to Rebecca Van Leer. Rebecca was a heiress to an iron fortune and a member of the Van Leer family. She had married one of his brothers, Andrew Jackson Polk, in 1846.The mansion was sold for US$35,000. [1] Andrew and his wife spent another US$35,000 on expansions and refurbishments. [1] Their children, Van Leer Polk and Antoinette Van Leer Polk, grew up at the mansion. [1]

On July 5, 1861, at the outset of the American Civil War, Andrew Jackson Polk, who was elected Captain, [4] organized the Maury County Braves in a grove on the grounds of Ashwood Hall. [1]

In 1862, Antoinette Polk saved Confederate personnel stationed at Ashwood Hall by warning them that Northern forces were coming their way. [5] As a result, she became known as a "Southern heroine." [5]

It burned down in 1874. [2]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Garrett, Jill K. (Spring 1970). "St. John's Church, Ashwood". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 29 (1): 3–23. JSTOR   42623126.
  2. 1 2 Tennessee: A Guide to the State, US History Publishers: Federal Writers' Project, 1949, p. 389
  3. ↑ James Patrick, Architecture in Tennessee, 1768-1897, Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press, 1990, p. 111
  4. ↑ William Bruce Turner, History of Maury County, Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee: The Parthenon Press, 1955, p. 376
  5. 1 2 "Valorous Acts of American Women in War: A Few Instances of Personal Heroism at the Front". The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. June 3, 1917. p. 2. Retrieved July 10, 2015– via Newspapers.com. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
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