Statesview, or States View, is a historic house located on South Peters Road off

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 1 ...

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Di ...

, United States. Built in 1805 by early Knoxville architect Thomas Hope and rebuilt in 1823 following a fire, Statesview was originally the home of surveyor

Charles McClung Charles McClung (May 13, 1761 – August 9, 1835) was an American pioneer, politician, and surveyor best known for drawing up the original plat of Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1791. While Knoxville has since expanded to many times its original s ...

(1761–1835). Following McClung's death, newspaper publisher

Frederick Heiskell Frederick Steidinger Heiskell (1786 – November 29, 1882) was an American newspaper publisher, politician, and civic leader, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, throughout much of the 19th century. He cofounded the ''Knoxville Register ...

(1786–1882) purchased the house and estate, which he renamed "Fruit Hill."Nannie Lee Hicks, Mary Rothrock (ed.), "Some Early Communities," ''The French Broad-Holston Country: A History of Knox County, Tennessee'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: East Tennessee Historical Society, 1972), p. 334. The house is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

for its architecture and political significance.

Design

Statesview is a simple, two-story

Federal-style Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the newly founded United States between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was heavily based on the works of Andrea Palladio with several inn ...

brick house, located on a wooded lot opposite the intersection of South Peters Road and George Williams Road. The house consists of a main section, a smaller (but still two stories) northeast wing, and a modern rear addition. The main section consists of a central entry hall flanked by rooms on either side, with a staircase leading to the second story. It is unknown how closely the current house, reconstructed following a fire in 1823, resembles the original house, or if it includes any part of the original. Statesview Original Homestead

History

Statesview was built for early Knoxville surveyor Charles McClung, a son-in-law of Knoxville founder James White.Mary Rothrock, ''The French Broad-Holston Country: A History of Knox County, Tennessee'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: East Tennessee Historical Society, 1972), pp. 446-7. McClung drew up the original 1791 plat of Knoxville, and surveyed what is now Kingston Pike during the same period. Construction on Statesview, then located in an isolated area west of Knoxville, began around 1804, and was completed in 1805. To build the house, McClung hired Thomas Hope, an English-born architect and house joiner who had previously built the Ramsey House in east Knox County.Mary Rothrock, ''The French Broad-Holston Country: A History of Knox County, Tennessee'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: East Tennessee Historical Society, 1972), pp. 428-429. Following McClung's death in 1835, his heirs sold the house and estate to Frederick Heiskell.Mary Rothrock, ''The French Broad-Holston Country: A History of Knox County, Tennessee'' (Knoxville, Tenn.:East Tennessee Historical Society, 1972), p. 423. Heiskell had cofounded the ''

Knoxville Register The ''Knoxville Register'' was an American newspaper published primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the 19th century. Founded in 1816, the paper was East Tennessee's dominant newspaper until 1863, when its pro-secession editor, Jacob Austin Sp ...

'', the city's leading newspaper, in 1816. Prior to purchasing Statesview, however, he sold his interest in the paper and retired. Heiskell renamed the estate "Fruit Hill." By the time Heiskell purchased Statesview, the estate consisted of ,
A Forty-Niner from Tennessee: The Diary of Hugh Brown
' (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1998), p. xiv. and included a gristmill along nearby Sinking Creek (modern Ten Mile Creek) known as "Mansion Mill" (replaced circa 1870 by the current Ebenezer Mill),Ann Bennett, , May 1994, p. 32. Retrieved: 18 April 2011. as well as a sawmill. Heiskell planted extensive orchards throughout the estate, where he grew apples, pears, peaches, cherries, plums, and

quince The quince (; ''Cydonia oblonga'') is the sole member of the genus ''Cydonia'' in the Malinae subtribe (which also contains apples and pears, among other fruits) of the Rosaceae family (biology), family. It is a deciduous tree that bears hard ...

s. He also raised horses, cattle, and hogs. Around 1880, Heiskell, then in his early 90s, moved back to Knoxville.Samuel G. Heiskell,
Andrew Jackson and Early Tennessee History
' (Nashville: Ambrose Printing Company, 1918), p. 80. The ownership of Statesview passed to his stepson, James Fulkerson.

Design

History

See also