The Mabry Hood House, also known as the Mabry Hood Mansion, and the Upland South Plantation,
was a former cotton plantation and historic
antebellum style plantation home once located on the south side of
Kingston Pike
Kingston Pike is a highway in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, that connects Downtown Knoxville with West Knoxville, Farragut, and other communities in the western part of the county. The road follows a merged stretch of U.S. Route 11 ...
at the intersection of Mabry Hood Road in
Knox County, Tennessee
Knox County is located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 478,971, making it the third-most populous county in Tennessee. Its county seat is Knoxville, which is the third-most populous city in Tennessee. K ...
. The vacant home sat in the path of
Pellissippi Parkway
The Pellissippi Parkway is a major highway in Knox and Blount counties in the Knoxville metropolitan area in Tennessee that extends from State Route 62 at Solway to SR 33 in Alcoa. It provides access to the cities of Oak Ridge ...
and was demolished in 1983 after falling into disrepair.
History
Mabry Hood was a two-story,
Greek Revival
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...
style home with a columned, two-story high front portico. Although primarily brick, wood siding was located on the front face of the home behind the portico.
The productive, plantation was occupied from c. 1830 through the early 20th Century by the George Mabry family. George Washington Mabry (21 July 1823 – 23 July 1912) married Jeanette Hume in 1846, and built the mansion c. 1851, five years after the marriage. The mansion was constructed by slaves. Mabry was recorded as having 18 slaves in the 1850 census, but only 8 slaves in the 1860 census.
The Mabry family
By 1860, George Mabry and his wife Jeanette had at least five children. However, they also had a residence in what is now downtown Knoxville. Robert Tracy McKenzie noted that George Mabry declined to take the Confederate loyalty oath, which complicated his ability to travel to his west Knox County farm while the region was under the control of the Confederacy. His relationship did not improve when Union forces took control of
East Tennessee
East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. Geographically and socioculturally distinct, it comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee. East Tennessee consists of 33 count ...
, since he admitted that one reason he did not actively support the C.S.A. was his expectation that they would lose the war.
His brother,
Joseph Alexander Mabry II (c. 1825 - October 19, 1882) and nephew Joseph Alexander Mabry III (May 23, 1855 – October 19, 1882),
both immortalized in Mark Twain's ''
Life on the Mississippi'', are also associated with this estate. However, Joseph Alexander Mabry II built a home in east Knoxville in 1858, the
Mabry-Hazen House, Knoxville, which is now a historic house museum.
The family's wealth, prominence and political connections are illustrated by how Jeanette Mabry avoided harm during the U.S. Civil War. Although George Mabry was officially "neutral", his Scottish-born wife was an outspoken opponent of secession. Robert Tracy McKenzie reports that Mrs. Mabry threatened to return to
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
if the South was successful, and informed her husband that she would not live in the
C.S.A. even if "Washington and Jefferson were both raised from the dead". Her wealth, prominence and being female, as well as having Joseph Mabry - an early secessionist leader - as a brother-in-law, are cited as reasons she was not harmed. Their neighbors, the James Harvey Baker family, did not share her views.
Demolition
The house was last occupied in the late 1960s, when it was sold. It was sold again to an engineering firm in 1974. During its abandonment, the house fell into a state of disrepair and was burglarized and vandalized on multiple occasions. It was finally demolished in early March 1983.
[
Archaeological investigations were conducted in the early 1990s in preparation for the extension of Pellissippi Parkway. The Mabry estate was classified by this investigation as an Upland South plantation, only a limited amount of cotton was found to have been grown on the estate.]Baker Peters House The Baker Peters House is an antebellum house located on the south side of Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee, near the intersection of Peters Road and Kingston Pike. The house is a two-story Greek Revival structure. It has a porte-cochere on th ...
and Statesview, located near the intersection of Kingston Pike and Peters Road, still stand.) Unlike Knollwood, which was located on the top of Bearden Hill, the Mabry Hood House sat close to modern-day Kingston Pike, and near grade.
References
* Brewer, Becky French, and McDaniel, Douglas Stuart.'' Park City, Tennessee: Images of America'', Arcadia Publishing (2005).
* Deaderick, Lucile, editor. ''A History of Knoxville, Tennessee''. The Knoxville History Committee - East Tennessee Historical Society, Page 563 & 564.
* McKenzie, Robert Tracy. ''Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town in the American Civil War''. Oxford University Press, USA (2006).
* Rothrock, Mary U. ''The French Broad-Holston country: A history of Knox County, Tennessee: A contribution to the sesquicentennial celebration of Tennessee statehood''. The Society (1946).
External links
Park City Online: Chilhowee Park History
- ''including the 1990-1991 Mabry Hood Plantation archaeology exacavation''
{{coord, 35.90281, -84.11877, display=title
Houses in Knox County, Tennessee
Plantation houses in Tennessee
Greek Revival houses in Tennessee
Neoclassical architecture in Tennessee
Slave cabins and quarters in the United States
Buildings and structures demolished in 1983